The Red Thread
by RoseAngelx
Summary: A series of alternate ways that John and Sherlock could have met. PROMPT FIC. Prompt #28: John meets Sherlock by saving him from his captors. ... maybe John took to urban exploration of abandoned areas once he discovered his limp improved with adrenaline rushes? He then hears a car, and sees from a distance that a man is obviously there against his will.
1. Passing Time

**Author's Note: IMPORTANT**! This fic is a prompt fic. Some of the chapters will be based off posts and ideas that I've seen floating around Tumblr, but I am absolutely open to receiving prompts from you guys. This series will be a series of potential first meetings, but beyond that, I'll take anything: canon-compliant or non-compliant, realistic setting or fantasy, romantic or platonic, you name it. Just send me a message, either here or on Tumblr (roseangelx), or put it in the comments. I'd love to see what ideas you all come up with.

I'll endeavour to post weekly, if possible (which, of course, will depend both on my own schedule and the number of prompts I receive - I may post more or less frequently depending on the number of prompts). For now, I hope you guys enjoy!

Also, a million thanks to my brilliant beta, Becca (ArchiveofOurOwn's LlamaWithAPen), without whom my work would have considerably more typos.

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 _An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place, or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle, but will never break_. - Ancient Chinese belief

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Prompt from Tumblr user za-smierc-przyjaciela: _John is a regular at Sherlock's part-time place of work (bar, restaurant, whatever) and while they don't really talk, Sherlock makes deductions._

 **Passing Time**

No one likes their first job, not really. No one starts out with dreams of progressing up the ladder and making a career out of it; they start working because they want money, to go out or to buy food or to pay rent. They start out in fast food, or retail, or catering, counting down the hours until their shift is up, gaining nothing from it but their pay and, if they are lucky enough, maybe a tip or two. This pay is what keeps them coming back for their next shift, keeping them from quitting on the spot every time a customer tries to convince them that the customers themselves know better than the employees.

Still, this does not mean that Sherlock Holmes doesn't spend every moment that he's on shift, waiting on tables, bored out of his mind.

It's not like he even needs this job, really. His family has always been rather well off, and his parents could easily afford to spare enough money to help him through university. Mycroft, his older brother, got a scholarship, so, arguably, they had even more money to spend on Sherlock as a result of not having to pay for Mycroft. However, his parents are convinced that Sherlock needs to learn things like self-control, and responsibility, and all those dreadfully dull things one learns when they work, and so they have limited the amount of money that they lend to Sherlock to force him to find an alternative source of income in order to do the things he wants to do.

He would have had enough money saved up from the allowance he was offered in his childhood, given the fact that he was never the most sociable of people and so he had never needed to waste that money on movie tickets or an excessive number of cab fares. Unfortunately, he took up some rather expensive hobbies a couple of years ago, and while his money is not being spent on that, not anymore, it did put a hole in his pocket.

Which is why Sherlock is stuck here counting down the hours until closing time and trying his very best not to yell at the imbecile that keeps telling him that the jug of iced water is too cold.

Sherlock is gaining absolutely nothing from this, outside of the small amount of money that he can spend as he pleases. There are no skills that he is earning as a waiter that he will need in his future life. His future career is not going to require him to be polite to people – especially not idiots like the one at table twelve – or to know how to give the correct amount of change, or how to carry three plates at once, or how to clean a table. None of that will be necessary when he is a consulting detective – the career that Sherlock has had his heart set on from the moment he realised that consulting detectives did not exist. He invented the job when he was nine.

Unfortunately, the only thing that is necessary for a consulting detective is people who are willing to consult with a detective, and, even more unfortunately, no one wants to listen to a nineteen-year-old.

Really, the police should be listening to him, despite his age. They should be coming to him for help when they are out of their depth (which is _always_ , from what Sherlock has gathered from the sheer number of unfinished police investigations he reads about in papers). He is certain that he is cleverer than all of them put together, and he has absolutely no doubt that he would be an immense help in their investigations. And yet, they won't listen to him. They will blame his age, or the fact that he does not have the necessary qualifications, and so they will not listen to a word he says. Really, it is probably because the police do not want to be outshone by someone who is, at least in their eyes, scarcely more than a child.

(And, okay, maybe he failed to make a good impression when he stumbled onto a crime scene and started spouting deductions while he was not completely clear of mind, but that does not mean that his observations about the movement of the body after death were inaccurate.)

He carries the jug of non-iced water over to the table, putting on the politest expression he can manage. It feels like his cheek muscles are straining just to hold the smile. It hardly matters, though, because the man does not even look at him; he sits there like he believes himself entitled to whatever he asks for and does not seem to believe that waiters deserve so much as a thank you for doing their job. He holds his head high and does not so much as spare Sherlock a glance, and the only way that Sherlock knows that his placement of the water jug did not go unnoticed is because Sherlock hears the man mutter something about 'lousy service' when Sherlock turns his back. Sherlock resists the urge to inform him that his wife, seated across from him, is having an affair and his on the brink of leaving him for her other lover.

This is the only skill that Sherlock is gaining from working here at Angelo's. The restaurant caters to a variety of customers, meaning that it offers a tasting platter of people that Sherlock can make deductions about. It's the easiest way to pass the time whenever he's standing still, waiting for the next party of customers to push through the door or the next dish to be placed upon the kitchen counter.

He stands by the window to the kitchen as he waits for his next task, scanning the crowd of customers in search of someone to test his powers of deduction on.

There's a family of four – a mother, father, and two young girls squabbling over who should get the biscuit that came with their father's coffee (well-off financially, daughters used to getting whatever they want, signs of stress around the woman's eyes resulting from either work life or family life, indications of strain in her marriage).

There are two young women two tables down from them, talking and giggling and brushing their knees together underneath the table (a recent relationship, still new and exciting and secret).

There's an elderly man who lifts his coffee cup every time he goes to take a sip as though he's saying 'Cheers' to the empty seat across from him (used to come here with his partner, still learning to live without her, wishing either a happy birthday or anniversary to her memory).

His gaze eventually settles on a young couple who have just been guided to a corner table, only a few years older than Sherlock. Sherlock starts with the young man, because, unlike the woman, he looks familiar. Sherlock is certain that he's seen the man at the restaurant before, though it hasn't been during a shift where he could take his time observing and deducing. He takes advantage of this opportunity today, taking in the way he is dressed and the cut of his hair. It's clearly not a professional encounter, but the man is dressed neatly. Now that Sherlock thinks of it, he is reasonably certain that this is how the man normally dresses when Sherlock has seen him before. It gives some indications about his character; he's likely smart, well-organised, clearly interested in making a good impression whenever he meets anyone.

The man scarcely glances at the menu as he sits down, making a decision easily. It is a possibility that something on the menu jumped out at him immediately, but Sherlock knows that most people will read the rest of the menu even after something initially catches their attention, just in case there is something better further down. No, it seems more likely that this man is a man of routine, used to making the same decision every time.

The woman sitting across from him is his polar opposite in just about every way. Her hair is short, the style almost boyish, but it is not trimmed neatly like her partner. At a glance, it's messy enough to be considered 'bed-hair', but the way it shines in the light suggests that she's used some sort of product or hairspray, putting effort into making it look like she hasn't put effort in.

It's also bright pink.

Her makeup is similarly striking. Her lipstick is a little redder than her hair, and it leaves marks on the rim of her glass every time she takes a sip. Her eyeliner is thick and smooth on her eyelid, with a sharp wing at the outer corners of each eye, and there are shades of purple on her eyelids, making her eyes even darker.

She is in just about every way the complete opposite of the man sitting across from her, and yet here they both are, chatting amicably in a restaurant. Their body language does not suggest awkwardness or discomfort, either, as you might expect from a first date. They look as though they've known each other for years.

Well, they do say that opposites attract.

A woman at a nearby table stands to use the ladies' room, adjusting her form-fitting dress as she gets to her feet. Both the man and his pink-haired partner look over as she walks past, and both of their gazes linger on her a little longer than strictly necessary, and a lot longer than one would be looking at someone else while on a date. Which makes Sherlock's first mistake abundantly clear: they're not on a date. In fact, the way they both looked at the woman – who Sherlock assumes is conventionally attractive – suggest some level of attraction, which implies that they're both interested in the same sex.

Stupid mistake. He must be getting rusty. A deduction of the nature of a social encounter should be obvious. Clearly, he needs more practice.

They still seem like an unlikely pair, even if their relationship is strictly platonic. Perhaps the rule of "opposites attract" applies just as much to friends as it does to romantic partners.

They have both finished looking at the menu, now, but they are not being served. Sherlock cannot get away with standing around for too long before someone catches him and gives him a job to do, and he doesn't want to get stuck on cleaning duty if he can help it, so he moves over to their table. They both look up at him when he gets there, and he gets the first proper look at both of their faces. Immediately, he wants to hit himself.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

They're siblings.

It's so _obvious_ , now that they are looking straight at him. The dark eye makeup changes the shape of the woman's face, but it is quite clear that they have the same, dark eyes, and the same nose. Oh, it should have been so obvious to Sherlock the moment they entered, and yet his first deduction was that they were an unlikely couple. Stupid.

Sherlock clears his throat. "Can I get you anything to drink?"

The pink-haired woman immediately reaches for the wine list.

"Harry," says the man. His tone seems stern. Perhaps he disapproves of her spending money on alcohol, or disapproves of her drinking alcohol generally. Whatever the reason, the woman ignores him, scanning over the list briefly and eventually settling on a red wine.

When Sherlock turns his attention to the man, he notices that he looks disapproving, but the man does not stop his sister from ordering the drink. He shakes his head in response to Sherlock's question, saying that he is happy with water instead, and Sherlock nods, turning away to retrieve their drinks.

OoO

The man comes back to the restaurant the following week, without his sister. He comes late in the afternoon, shortly before they stop their lunch menu and start setting up for dinner, but he doesn't order a meal. He just asks for a cup of coffee instead.

Between serving other tables and cleaning up, Sherlock watches the man, determined to deduce everything about him correctly after he failed to make a correct deduction initially regarding the nature of his relationship with the woman Sherlock now knows to be the man's sister. He watches as the man rummages through the bag resting against the side of his chair, and he pulls out a notebook and pen, setting them up in front of him. When Sherlock gives him his coffee a few minutes later, he catches a glimpse of a diagram of the human body.

So, the man is studying, then. The diagram suggests biology. However, the man looks too old to be an undergraduate student, like Sherlock. It is still a possibility; perhaps he could have taken a gap year to travel, or to work, or perhaps he has been taking fewer classes to decrease the workload, consequently lengthening his degree. Alternatively – and, Sherlock believes, more likely, judging by the notes that he can catch a glimpse of when he is close enough – the man is doing postgraduate study. Specifically, he is studying medicine. He's studying to be a doctor.

Sherlock does not know much about this man, but he has an odd feeling that he would make a good doctor. The fact that he's studying in the middle of a restaurant suggests dedication. This deduction is supported by the fact that the man is drinking coffee; he's tired, presumably from late nights spent studying. He's given up hours of sleep, and he has given up the opportunity for a lunch break.

Well, this either indicates dedication or desperation. It may be the case that he has an exam within the next several hours, and he's now cramming in several weeks' worth of study that he should have done in advance. However, the pages and pages of notes that he is flipping through suggest he's organised, and organised students generally do not end up quite so desperate.

When a waitress comes to take his cup away, once he's finished his coffee, he orders a cup of tea. Tea is clearly his preferred beverage, and he likely chose coffee based off a need for caffeine, which further supports Sherlock's theory that the man is overworked and has not had enough sleep. He gives the small pot a few minutes to brew before he pours it, and he has several cups, finishing the entire pot before he packs and leaves.

OoO

Chemistry exams occupy Sherlock's time for a couple of weeks, leading him to cut down his shifts for a while until they're over. As a result, it's three weeks later when Sherlock next sees the man. He cannot say for certain whether that is purely because Sherlock himself hasn't been at the restaurant for a while, or if the man has not been there either.

He is with his sister again this time. Her hair has been re-dyed, this time a darker shade of red. Her makeup is still dark, but she has changed the style of it – this time, her thick, winged eyeliner is replaced by smudged, dark shades that give her a 'smoky eyed' look that strikes Sherlock as largely inappropriate for a restaurant. Perhaps she's going out afterwards. More likely, she's fond of standing out.

Sherlock takes their orders, starting with drinks once again. The man says that he's fine with water, just like last time (money is tight, clearly used to choosing cheaper options, unsurprising for a university student). The woman he calls Harry orders a beer, and Sherlock notices something flicker over the man's expression. He remembers the man's response to Harry's glass of wine last time, and he gets the impression that he disapproves of her drinking.

Harry seems to understand the look, because she looks over at the man and says, "Come on, John, it's _fine_."

Sherlock's gaze flickers between them for a moment in case they change their mind, and when they don't, he turns away to take their orders back to the kitchen. Behind him, he hears the man – John – say, "I just don't want a repeat of last time."

OoO

As the weeks go by, John's visits become increasingly regular. He's always there on a Friday, although the exact time varies; sometimes he is there for a late lunch or a drink (usually while studying), and sometimes he's there for dinner. Most of the time, he is on his own, but on occasion, his sister is with him. Once, Sherlock sees him with another female, and Sherlock notices the conversations between them are slightly awkward (new, first date, testing the waters). If the first date turns into anything more, it's never at the restaurant.

His sister, when she is with him, always has a different hair colour and a different style of makeup. Often, Sherlock does not immediately recognise her face, the dark makeup changing the way she looks, but he knows that it is her purely because there are not many people who come to the restaurant with such vibrant hair. As weeks turn into months, the occasions on which she is with John become fewer and further between; when they are together, conversation does not seem nearly as amicable and as comfortable as it was the first time Sherlock saw them.

Once, only once, Harry comes to the restaurant alone.

It's apt, really, that, in the same way that Sherlock's attention was first drawn to John through Harry and her attention-grabbing hair colour, it is through Harry that Sherlock first meets John properly. That is to say, it is through Harry that Sherlock has his first conversation with John that goes beyond asking for his order.

Harry does not take a seat at a table like John usually does, but instead sits at the bar. It is because of this that Sherlock does not pay attention to her, at first. He's a waiter, not a bartender; those at the tables are the ones who occupy most of his attention. He noted her when she entered, purplish hair catching his eye, but beyond that, he does not pay any mind to her for about an hour. Then she catches his attention, along with the attention of everyone else in the restaurant, as she starts a rather loud argument with the bartender, Victor. Victor has a duty of care that prevents him from providing anyone with more alcohol once they have reached a certain level of intoxication, and judging by the way she sways on her chair and the way her voice slurs, Harry is definitely too drunk to be offered any more. Clearly, Harry is displeased that she is being refused another drink, and now she's making sure the whole restaurant knows it.

She's disturbing the people at the restaurant and at the bar, as well as the staff. The commotion she is causing has silenced all other conversations; people are turning their heads and staring at her, exchanging concerned glances with one another. Victor is looking increasingly stressed, threatening to call security, insisting that she leaves, but it is not enough to scare Harry into leaving her seat, or even enough to get her to take a breath and calm down.

If it were anyone else, Sherlock might have turned his attention back to his main job and let the bartender handle it. If it were anyone else, he might have simply decided that it was not his problem. However, Harry and her brother have been regular enough customers for Sherlock to feel like he knows them, and it's quite clear by the expression on Victor's face that the bartender is not doing a very good job of handling it after all.

Harry is far too drunk and far too engaged in the argument to notice that Sherlock has come up behind her. His gaze flickers over her coat, and he notes the way her left pocket hangs lower than her right, suggesting there is something inside of it that is weighing it down. He catches Victor's eye as he reaches for the pocket, and Victor takes the hint, keeping Harry's attention on him (which is not difficult) while Sherlock pulls out her phone, immediately taking a few steps back before she can notice that he has confiscated it.

Even before he's unlocked the screen, the phone provides further evidence for the hypothesis that Harry has been in a similar position before. It might be the first time she's had an argument with a bartender – Sherlock does not have enough data to deduce that – but it is certainly not the first time that she has gotten drunk. Scratch marks around the power connection tell him that Harry has gone to plug her phone in to charge with shaky hands. The sheer number of marks says that this might even be a common occurrence.

He thinks back to the small part of the conversation that he caught between her and John a few weeks back. _I just don't want a repeat of last time_ , John had said. Last time could refer to any number of things. Perhaps Harry had gotten similarly worked up, and had enough to drink to make her violent. Perhaps it made her sick, or she had lost consciousness. It is even possible that the correct answer was a combination of the above. Either way, Harry has been drunk before, and has gotten herself into some sort of trouble before, and John is aware of it.

There is no lock on the phone, for which Sherlock is grateful. Had it been necessary, he would have managed to work out the code, but it would have wasted several precious seconds. This is faster. He goes into the list of recent contacts, glancing at the name on the top of the list. "Clara", it reads, followed by a love heart. She is clearly a romantic partner. However, Sherlock does not know Clara, and Sherlock also knows that Harry's current mission to drink herself into oblivion has probably been triggered by something. Problems in one's love life are a common example of such triggers. Sherlock has no way of ruling out the possibility that Harry's partner is the root of the problem, so it's better not to take the risk.

Instead, Sherlock chooses the more familiar name, second from the top: John.

John picks up within a couple of rings. It's not that late, but he still sounds tired, exasperated. "What now, Harry?"

Sherlock is certain he has called the right person, but the last thing he needs is for John to panic upon hearing a different voice than Harry's. So, instead of launching straight into an explanation for the call, he asks, "Is this John?"

When John next speaks, he sounds far more alert. "Who's this?" he asks. "Where's Harry?"

"This is Sherlock. I'm calling from Angelo's. You're Harry's brother, correct?"

"Yes. What's going on?"

"Your sister has had too much to drink," Sherlock says, glancing over at Harry, who has just jumped out of her seat. Maybe she's about to make a run for the bathroom, he thinks. At least that would keep her quiet for a while, although Sherlock hopes he doesn't end up stuck on cleaning duty. "She needs to be escorted home."

He hears John swear on the other end of the phone, the sound muffled as though John has pulled the phone away from his mouth. It's clearer when he speaks again. "I'll be there in about twenty minutes, okay? Keep an eye on her."

Harry has not made a run for the bathroom. She's merely opted to try standing while she continues her argument, as though that might change the bartender's mind. It's rather unsuccessful, seeing as she's swaying on her feet.

"It's rather hard not to," Sherlock mutters.

"Thanks. I'll be there soon," John replies, and the phone clicks as he hangs up. Sherlock glances at Harry, wondering if he can return the phone to her pocket without her noticing. He concludes that he is capable of it, but decides that it is best that Harry does not have her phone on her until John gets here. He opts to hold onto it instead.

OoO

It takes twenty-five minutes for John to get to the restaurant. Sherlock sees him step out of a cab, so it is safe to assume that the driver is to blame for John's tardiness. Cab drivers are largely inefficient, compared to driving oneself. John likely has no other option; he either does not have a car, or does not have a license. Sherlock assumes both. London has enough in terms of public transport for one to get away with not having a car, and if John does not have a car, he does not need a license either.

He watches John lean over the window, presumably telling the driver to wait for him, before he turns and heads into the restaurant.

Harry catches John's attention immediately. It's rather hard to miss her. Sherlock does not intercept his path, but rather stands back and watches as John approaches her, in a similar sort of way to how someone might approach a wild animal when they cannot predict its reaction.

"Harry," he says softly, and she turns around too quickly at the sound of his voice.

"John!" she exclaims, and she loses her footing. However, John has excellent reflexes, and he steps forwards to catch her before she hits the ground. His arms go underneath hers, supporting her and helping her to find her feet again. She seems unharmed, and she also sees it as hysterically funny, judging by the way she giggles into his ear.

In the course of two seconds, she's gone from angry to giggly. It's a rather startling contrast.

"Come on," John says, releasing her carefully but staying close in case she loses her balance again. "Let's get you home."

She shakes her head vigorously. "No," she says, drawing out the 'o' sound. "Not done yet."

"Yes, I think you are," John says patiently. He's clearly been in similar situations before. He seems to approach the situation with a sort of practiced ease that goes beyond a single person. Perhaps, as well as with Harry, he has done this before with another family member. After all, alcoholism often has a genetic basis, or can be acquired through observation of a parental figure.

Harry isn't facing Sherlock, so he cannot see her face, but she's clearly having some kind of wordless conversation with John, because he then shakes his head despite her lack of a verbal response. "No, Harry," he says again, his tone firm, authoritative. "Clara will be wondering what's happened to you."

It's the wrong thing to say. Harry's personality snaps back from happy drunk to angry drunk in a second, and she tries to push John away. She's clearly tried to be forceful, but she has either been weakened by the alcohol, or John is strong enough to stand his ground.

"I don't give a _shit_ what Clara thinks," she spits, her voice slurring on the words. "She can go do whatever she wants. 'M not going back."

John holds his hands up in surrender. "Okay," he says gently, "but we still need to get you home. You can stay with me tonight, all right?" When Harry does not immediately respond, John continues, "Please, Harry", and Harry, much to John's visible relief (as well as that of Sherlock, Victor, and presumably everyone else left in the restaurant), nods her head.

"Mmkay," she slurs, and John relaxes a bit, wrapping one arm around her to both support her and guide her out of the restaurant. He shoots an apologetic glance at the bartender nearest to him, and then he walks slowly until they've stepped out the door, Harry swaying a little with every step.

It's not until Sherlock has seen the cab pull away from the side of the road when he realises that Harry's phone is still in his hands.

OoO

Sherlock makes a mental note to call John the following day, but it doesn't turn out to be necessary. John turns up only an hour or so after they've opened for lunch. The bar is not open, so he goes to the front counter, and Sherlock hears him ask the waitress there if anyone left a phone the night before. Sherlock pulls it out of his back pocket and holds it out, catching John's attention. He turns to face Sherlock, and his expression immediately becomes relieved.

"Oh, thank God," he says, taking the phone from Sherlock's hands, looking it over as though to confirm that it is, in fact, Harry's phone. "If it hadn't been here, I don't know where else I could have looked."

"It would hardly be your responsibility," Sherlock says. "It's your sister's phone."

"She's sleeping off a remarkable hangover today, as you can imagine, so she won't be looking for it any time soon. Didn't want to leave it hanging around for too long, because I figured if we didn't find it today, she'd never get it back." He turns the screen on to check for any missed calls or messages, before sliding it into his back pocket and looking back at Sherlock. His gaze flickers to the name tag. "You're the one who called me last night, aren't you?"

Sherlock nods once. "Yes."

"Well, thank you. I wanted to apologise on her behalf. I know it must have made your job so much harder, and you should not have had to deal with it."

Sherlock shakes his head dismissively. "Not your fault. You did not force your sister to become an alcoholic, let alone to come here last night. You can blame her for that; it was her decision to come, drink, and start an argument. Or, arguably, you could blame Clara, although I don't have enough data to say for certain whether or not she has actually done anything wrong."

John's brow furrows. "Do you know Clara?" he asks.

Sherlock shakes his head. "Not personally, no, but relationship problems are a common cause of stress, and alcohol is frequently used for self-medicating." He pauses for a beat, and adds, "That was rather a shot in the dark, of course, but given the conversation that you had with your sister last night, and the way that she responded to Clara's name, I'd say I'm right."

"Oh," John says, sounding surprised.

But now that Sherlock has started, he finds he cannot stop. Deductions spill out of his mouth like a waterfall. "Of course, you could just as easily argue that your father was the one to blame."

"My father?"

"A girl her age, drinking to this extent, and clearly not for the first time, suggests she's either learnt the habit from somewhere or she has a genetic predisposition towards it, or perhaps both. Either explanation suggests a parent with similar problems with alcohol. Could be your mother, I suppose, but father is statistically more likely. It couldn't be you, her responsible big brother; you clearly have less of an interest in drinking than she does, perhaps because you did not inherit whatever genetic predisposition towards it that she has, or perhaps because you've seen what it does to her or your father and you don't want that to happen to you. You're a medical student, you know the risks, and you clearly want to perform well academically. This does not leave you with many opportunities to get as drunk as she did last night. That, and alcohol is expensive, which is further reason for you to avoid it while you're trying to limit the amount of money you spend."

John is staring at him now, the expression on his face a mixture of shock, confusion, and something that Sherlock cannot immediately identify. "How could you possibly know all that?" he asks.

Sherlock makes a dismissive hand gesture. "They're simple enough deductions. The marks on your sister's phone, from plugging in the charger with shaky hands, suggest she's been drunk before. The conversation you had with her the last time you ate dinner here, after she ordered a drink, suggests that, on top of that, she's had negative experiences. The way you handled it yesterday also suggests that you've experienced it before, either with her or with your father. I'm right in saying father, aren't I, and not mother? Alcoholism is more common in males.

"I know you're a medical student, too, because you were studying biology in here one afternoon, and you're too old to be an undergraduate. I know that you've consistently chosen cheaper options and you've never ordered a drink other than water, implying that money is tight, or possibly that you're saving for something. It's likely the former, given you're a university student and university students are rarely financially stable. See? Simple."

Sherlock takes a breath as he finishes, and he lets his eyes wander the room, anticipating the usual comments. _Freak_ , perhaps. Or _piss off_ , that's a common one. Or maybe John will just walk out with a promise to never come back to the restaurant again.

These comments don't come.

Instead, what comes out of John's mouth is, "That... was amazing."

For a moment, Sherlock's brain goes offline. He cannot quite compute what he's just heard. He runs over the sentence in his mind a couple of times, trying to work out if there was a possibility that he had misheard, that the word 'amazing' was actually something far more insulting with the same number of syllables. When he fails to come up with any ideas as to what John could have actually said, he studies John's face and body language, trying to work out if the words had been intended in a sarcastic manner. Sarcasm has eluded Sherlock from time to time in the past. However, there is no sign of ingenuity in John's face. In fact, there is a look of amazement.

"You think so?" Sherlock asks after a pause, because he's not sure how else to respond.

"Of course I do," John replies. "That was extraordinary. Christ, you really got all that just from watching us when we came out for dinner? That's fantastic."

Sherlock blinks, opens his mouth to respond, and finds himself in the rare position of being speechless. He's not quite sure how to respond to the feeling.

John continues, "Do you do that with everyone who comes in here, or am I just special?" A smile crosses his face as he says it, his expression and his tone teasing, _friendly_ , and Sherlock is not used to being spoken to like this, especially not after making deductions. It makes him feel flustered, and he shakes his head quickly.

"It's not just you. I deduce everyone, to pass the time. I just have more data on you because you're a regular, so I can deduce more about you compared to, say, the blonde woman over there who has never been here before. This restaurant isn't her usual taste. The only reason she's here today is because she's meeting a date, judging by her outfit, and her date has clearly been the one to choose the location. Her nervousness suggests it's a first date, and judging by the way she keeps checking her phone and checking her appearance in her pocket mirror, I'd wager her date has never seen her before. It's safe to assume it's a blind date, or perhaps, more likely, she's met him on one of those dating websites..." He trails off, realising that he's rambling, and John is staring at him with that same expression from before – the one that Sherlock initially failed to recognise. "Sorry," he mumbles, and then he realises that the expression is awe.

"That's brilliant," John says. "Christ, how did you learn to do that?"

Sherlock shakes his head dismissively. "It's obvious if you pay enough attention."

"Still incredible," John says. "You really are something else."

Sherlock doesn't know what to say to that, so he stays quiet. After a beat, John asks, "It's Sherlock, right?"

Sherlock would normally point out that his name is right there, on his name tag, and John is capable of reading, but his brain is still rebooting following John's unusual response. Instead, he just nods his head. "Yes," he says.

John extends a hand and says, "I'm John."

Sherlock's brow furrows, and he stares at the outstretched hand as though it's a foreign object. "Yes, I know," he says slowly. Why is John introducing himself now?

"Yes, well, now I'm properly making your acquaintance," John says. "I didn't introduce myself last night."

"You had your priorities," Sherlock says, still frowning, "not to mention the fact that it was unnecessary, seeing as I already know your name."

John rolls his eyes and says, "Are you going to shake my hand or leave me hanging?" and Sherlock finally reaches out and grasps John's hand with his own, making John beam. "That's better."

They shake hands briefly, and when they let go, John says, "It was nice to meet you, Sherlock. Properly, that is, and not under circumstances that involve my sister making a fool of herself at the bar. If you're not too busy, maybe I can come and say hi the next time I stop in for lunch." He pauses, and adds, "If that's not too weird, of course."

It is weird, but only because Sherlock is not used to people wanting to talk to him, and it's not the bad sort of weird that John is thinking of. So, Sherlock shakes his head. "No, not at all," he says, and John smiles.

"Great," he says. "I better get back and make sure Harry's okay, but I'll see you the next time I come in. Again, it was really nice to meet you."

"You too," Sherlock replies, and he watches as John turns and walks back outside, the door swinging shut behind him.

OoO

Passing the time in between serving customers becomes a lot easier after that.


	2. Experiments

**Author's Note** : Thanks so much to everyone who commented on the last fic, and especially to everyone who sent in a prompt. They've all been noted and will absolutely be used. I'm still accepting prompts, so send them in!

A million thanks to my brilliant beta, Becca (LlamaWithAPen on Ao3).

* * *

Prompt from Tumblr user anonymoussong's "List of AUs" post: _The postal worker delivered your package to my place accidentally and I was expecting something so I totally didn't look before I opened it and… wow that is um… quite an interesting thing you bought and I'm here to return it._

 **Experiments**

According to the postage website, the boxset of old _Doctor Who_ DVDs that John ordered is "in transit". John would like to think that this means that his parcel is due to turn up when the postman does his rounds this morning, but the postage website also said that his boxset was "in transit" yesterday, and the day before that. Not that John is checking frequently, of course.

Okay, so John _is_ checking the website repeatedly, but he's allowed to be a little bit excited. This is the first time in a long while that he's allowed himself to buy something that isn't strictly necessary, something just for him, just for enjoyment. Living off an army pension in a bedsit that barely deserves the title of 'flat', let alone 'home', John had only spent money on food and transport, saving up what he could. Now he's managed to get a job, however – just some work at a general practice, enough to help him earn enough money to move out into a nicer place on Montague Street. Nothing too fancy, but easily a step up from his bedsit. He's been here for a few weeks now, still working at the surgery, and he's been saving his money, only buying things that were necessary while he was settling in. However, he picked up a few more shifts in the past week, so he's earned a bit of extra money, and he figured that justified splurging a bit and buying something that he wanted.

So he's a little bit excited. He grew up watching this show and he has fond memories of it. Spending money, being excited about the purchase, and repeatedly checking the website for updates on the whereabouts of his delivery – it's all justified.

Besides, it's not like he's doing anything childish like staring out the window waiting for the postman to arrive. He's just sitting at his dining room table (he has a dining room, in this new place, an _actual_ dining room) with his laptop open, planning to go out and do his shopping at the _end_ of the day rather than at the start so that he doesn't wind up missing the postman.

And he's in luck, too. It's mid-morning when the doorbell rings. He doesn't have a huge number of friends and he has definitely not invited them over today, which means that the person behind the door is almost definitely the postman, with a box of Doctor Who DVDs.

Or they could possibly be a door-to-door salesperson, but John doesn't think he's quite _that_ unlucky.

He opens the door, and, just as he expected, the man standing behind it is wearing a postal jacket and has a parcel at his feet. In his hands he holds an electronic signature pad. "Good morning," he says, and John does his best not to look like he's been waiting impatiently for this delivery for a week.

He signs for the parcel and the man picks it up and hands it to him, saying "Have a nice day" as he moves back down to his bike on the street. John closes the door behind him, and then his face breaks out into a grin.

He carries the parcel onto his dining room table and puts it down, before grabbing a sharp knife from one of the drawers in his kitchen. In his head, he's going through his favourite episodes from his childhood, wondering which one he should watch first. Or maybe he should start at the very beginning, and relive his childhood through the show, watching it like he would have when it had first caught his interest.

He stabs the knife into the line of tape that seals the box shut, drags it along the length of the box to cut it open, throws open the flaps, and –

This.

This is not _Doctor Who_.

This is not even a DVD box set.

And this is most _definitely_ not something John would have been ordering.

Ever.

He stares blankly at the contents of the box for a long moment, as if he's expecting it to shift in front of his eyes and become the box of _Doctor Who_ DVDs that he had been expecting.

When it does not, he reaches in, very, very carefully, and touches one of the objects in the box with one finger, as though to confirm that it is not some sort of strange optical illusion, or trick of the mind.

The feel of cool metal against his fingertip confirms exactly what his eyes are telling him.

Sitting in front of him, is a box of handcuffs.

John isn't sure precisely how many handcuffs are in the box, because he doesn't want to start taking them out to count them, but there are definitely at least five sets in there. They're all the same colour – silver, realistic-looking, though surely they cannot actually be real, police-issue handcuffs? That said, you can get just about anything on the internet nowadays.

John isn't sure what someone would want with five or more pairs of handcuffs.

John isn't sure he _wants_ to know what someone would want with five or more pairs of handcuffs.

He walks away from the box for a moment, and then comes back. He closes the cardboard flaps so that he can see the name and the address on the box. Unsurprisingly, it's not his name. The name instead reads "Sherlock Holmes", and the address isn't the address for John's house, but the house next door.

He's just signed for his next door neighbour's delivery.

Whoops.

John hasn't met any of his neighbours yet. He's only moved in fairly recently, after all, and his neighbours clearly are not the sort of people to pop in and say hi or welcome him to the street. And John wouldn't expect them to, given he is also not the sort of person to pop to someone else's house and introduce himself. He would have expected that he would eventually meet his neighbours, when they left their houses at the same time and ran into each other on the street. Now, it seems that he might be forced to meet one of his neighbours much earlier than planned.

Maybe he can reseal the box, he thinks to himself. He could drop it off in front of this Sherlock Holmes' door and pretend that this whole thing never happened. But the man would have expected to sign for the box, and if he is suspicious enough to look into it, he'll discover John's signature. Maybe John should go over there himself. He can reseal the box, and he'll just go over there and explain the situation; he can say that he signed for the box without thinking, but when he got inside he noticed the name on the box. He can reseal it carefully; the man will never suspect a thing.

John realises a second later that that will not work, because he opened the box with a bit more enthusiasm than was strictly necessary, and so, rather than going straight through the tape, he managed to damage the sides of the flap as well. Even if he reseals it with masking tape, it's quite clearly been opened. If John goes and returns the delivery to its rightful owner, the rightful owner will still know that John has opened the box. And if John tries to deny having opened the box, the rightful owner might think that John has tried to steal from the box, or has done something else worth hiding.

There is only one option left. John just has to suck it up and tell the truth. He'll go over there, explain the situation, explain that he opened the box without realising that it wasn't for him. It was an accident; surely his neighbour will understand. Besides, it's not like the delivery was anything embarrassing or personal.

Unless the handcuffs are to be used for embarrassing, personal reasons.

John is very carefully not thinking about it. Definitely not. He doesn't want to know.

He closes up the box again, putting a piece of tape over the top to hold it shut. It definitely won't fool anyone into believing that the box has not been open, but it'll make it easier to carry. He lifts it carefully and carries it to his front door, taking a moment to shift it in his arms so that he has a free hand to open the door, and then he's stepping outside, walking across to the next door down, and then knocking.

He regrets it immediately. Maybe he should have just written a note. He could have left the box outside his neighbour's door with a note explaining the situation, and then everything would have been okay. He wouldn't have to actually meet his neighbour's eyes and tell his neighbour that he accidentally signed for the delivery of a box of handcuffs.

Maybe, he thinks (or hopes, more accurately), his neighbour won't be home. Maybe his neighbour will have a full-time job, unlike John, and so he will not actually be at home in the middle of the day on a weekday and John won't end up actually needing to meet him. Then John can go home, find a piece of paper and write 'Sorry, postman delivered this to the wrong house!' and leave the package and the note at the man's front door. He doesn't even need to sign the note. His neighbour will have no way of knowing that the package was delivered to him, as opposed to any of his other neighbours. Then John does not need to start this acquaintanceship with any form of awkward conversation. Everything will be okay.

Then the door handle turns, and that fantasy very quickly leaves John's mind, because the neighbour is home and John is about to have no choice but to wind up meeting under awkward circumstances.

He briefly considers dropping the box and fleeing the scene.

The door opens. The man behind it is neatly dressed – trousers, button-up shirt, suit jacket. John wonders if he's about to go to work, and if so, what his work involves, and whether or not the box of handcuffs is for his job. However, John cannot think of anything that would require handcuffs except for the obvious – a police officer – and John is fairly sure that police don't order their handcuffs in bulk online and get them delivered to their private residence.

The man's expression, for the most part, is neutral, though John thinks he sees a flicker of surprise when he opened the door, like he was expecting someone else. He probably was. He was probably expecting the postman; of course he would be surprised now that he has opened the door and found an unfamiliar face standing there instead.

"Um, hi," John says, a little awkwardly. The man is looking him up and down in a way that makes John feel oddly like he's being assessed for something. He's not sure what. "I'm..."

The man cuts him off, finishing the sentence for him. "My new neighbour."

John blinks in surprise, but quickly decides that he probably shouldn't be surprised. He has been here for a few weeks, after all. Maybe this man has seen him before as he has come and gone from his own home.

So, John says, "Yeah, that's right. I'm John."

John already knows that the man's name is Sherlock, because that is the name on the delivery. However, Sherlock doesn't introduce himself. Instead, his gaze immediately goes to the parcel in John's hand. His gaze is so intense that John feels he wouldn't be surprised if the man had x-ray vision.

"That's my parcel," he says. John wonders if maybe the man really does have x-ray vision.

"Ah, yeah," John says. "The postman delivered it to the wrong address, sorry."

He holds the parcel out, and Sherlock takes it. "It's not the first time the postman misplaced a delivery. He's incompetent at the best of times." He looks down at the top, and John knows that he can see the masking tape that John has used to seal the box shut. Sherlock confirms this immediately, because the next thing he says is, "And you opened it."

"Sorry," John says again. "I didn't think to check the name on it. I didn't touch any of them, though. Or take any of them, obviously. It's not like I'd steal handcuffs."

The man raises his eyebrows, and John feels like he's being assessed again. Maybe he is. Maybe Sherlock is trying to decide if he's lying. That said, John would have to be an idiot to steal a part of his neighbour's delivery, and then proceed to return the delivery, while lying about stealing a part of the delivery.

Maybe Sherlock is trying to judge what sort of impression he's made on John, given that John has seen what he's had delivered. He doesn't look embarrassed, but John has only just met the man. Maybe this is his embarrassed expression.

"I'm not judging you," John says quickly.

The man doesn't look relieved. In fact, he only looks confused. "Why would you be judging me?"

"I wouldn't," says John. He gestures to the box. "Whatever you do in your... spare time is your business."

The man frowns more. "Obviously," he says, and John thinks that if he hadn't dug himself into a hole just by opening the parcel, he definitely has now. Time for a tactical retreat.

"Right," John says. "I'll just, um, leave you to it."

The man's expression stays blank. John gives him a couple of seconds to respond, and when he doesn't, John repeats, "Right," and then turns and heads back into his house.

OoO

He barely thinks about Sherlock and the handcuffs for the next week.

He does have one rather unpleasant dream, which starts, as all his unpleasant dreams do, with Afghanistan and blood and gunfire, and ends with him handcuffed to a wall in some sort of basement or a cave, the key held tauntingly too close and yet just too far, by a dark-haired stranger whose blank expression occasionally turns into an almost maniacal grin.

He wakes from this dream at about three o'clock in the morning, and he checks all the doors and windows in the house before he can calm himself down to fall asleep again. By the time the sun rises, it sheds a different light on things, and makes him feel far more ridiculous.

That's the only time Sherlock really crosses his mind, however. On the occasions when they leave the house at a similar enough time to see one another, he takes note of him, and the fleeting thought of what those handcuffs really were for crosses his mind, but it disappears as soon as the man is out of sight. His job, and living in a new house (still new in his mind, even though he's been here for a month) does leave him with plenty to occupy his attention.

(That, and his _Doctor Who_ DVDs finally turn up two days later, so that distracts him for a while, too.)

OoO

He has a day off from work sometime the next week. He promised Ella, his therapist, at his last meeting that he would update his blog, which is the reason why he is currently sitting in front of the laptop screen, watching the cursor blink at him. Nothing happens to him, so he doesn't know what Ella expects him to write about. He's hardly about to write on a public website that he still dreams about Afghanistan and occasionally he wakes gasping for air, even after all this time, and he's definitely not about to write, anywhere his therapist can see, that if they could heal his shoulder and get rid of his limp and the shaking of his hand, he'd be back there in a heartbeat.

He types the words "Yesterday I" and then deletes them, frowning for a moment, and then going to start again. This time, he doesn't get that far, because he hears his phone sound behind him, telling him he has a new text message.

He almost doesn't recognise the sound, at first. It's been a long while since anyone's texted him. He lost touch with most of his friends when he left for Afghanistan, so he doesn't have anyone to text. Sarah, his manager at work, calls more often than she texts, whenever she needs someone to come in. Harry texts from time to time, though that's usually later in the afternoon, after the bars have opened. If Harry is the one texting him now, John will be a little bit concerned.

He pushes his chair back and gets to his feet, walking over his phone and picking it up. He doesn't recognise the number on there; it's not saved into his address book. Maybe it's one of those spam messages. He opens it up to check.

On the screen, there are three words.

Assistance required.  
SH

He frowns at the two-letter signature, running through names in his head. Does he know anyone with the initials SH? He knows plenty of people with a first name that starts with S, but no one immediately comes to mind who also has a last name starting with H. On top of that, he cannot immediately think of anyone who used to sign their text messages with any form of signature. They signed off emails, certainly – usually with a full name rather than just initials – but texts were generally left blank.

After a moment, when no one comes to mind, he types out a response and hopes that he isn't rudely forgetting a close friend.

Sorry, who is this?

The message comes through almost immediately, and John frowns.

Sherlock, from next door.  
SH

How did you get this number?

Easily. Everything is online  
somewhere.  
SH

John glances over at his laptop screen, where his blog, and his empty blog post, are still open, and has a sudden urge to delete everything that he's ever put anywhere on the internet.

Another message comes through a second later, before he has time to think of a response.

Again, I need your  
assistance.  
SH

With?

Come here.  
SH

To your house?

Do you always ask stupid  
questions?  
SH

John's mind immediately jumps to a certain dream, and images of being handcuffed and murdered by a psychopathic neighbour. The dream might have been ridiculous, outlandish even, but the idea behind it doesn't sound as impossible as he would like.

The potentially-psychopathic neighbour sends another message while he's lost in thought.

Wherever your mind has  
gone, stop. I'm not about  
to try to murder you.  
SH

John tries not to think about the fact that the man seemed to just read his mind.

That sounds awfully a lot  
like something a murderer  
might say.

Dull. Are you this  
suspicious of  
everyone?  
SH

"Trust issues," his therapist has said. Though it's hardly like he's paranoid. It's hardly as though he has trust issues for no good reason.

The man might have a point, though. John doesn't know him. There might be no reason to immediately mistrust him.

Or there might be a very good reason.

There's no way of knowing without going over there, like the man has asked. He might be a perfectly ordinary human being, who needs John's help for a perfectly ordinary, perfectly respectable reason. There might be absolutely no reason for John to be concerned.

And if the man _is_ a psychopathic murderer whose ultimate aim is to use five pairs of handcuffs on John – well, John is skilled in hand-to-hand combat and he's pretty sure if it came to it he could escape the moment he realised that he did, in fact, have reasons to be suspicious.

Again, the man sends another text while John is thinking. He doesn't seem to like the long gaps in between John's message – even though the long gaps are scarcely more than a minute or two.

You're a doctor. Aren't you  
supposed to want to help  
people?  
SH

Do you need a doctor?

Arguably.  
SH

If you need medical  
attention, you should  
call an ambulance.

If I needed medical  
attention, I'd have a much  
better chance if I contacted  
the doctor living next door,  
given the average arrival time  
for an ambulance is 8 minutes.  
Right now I do not need urgent  
medical attention. I just require  
assistance.  
SH

What do you need help  
with?

Come here.  
SH

That's not what I asked.

I need help getting out of  
an uncomfortable position.  
SH

Are we speaking literally  
or figuratively?

Literally. Do hurry up, why  
don't you.  
SH

John stares at his phone for another moment, tells himself that he's taking a risk and maybe he would be safer if he just stayed home, that if the man really does need help then surely he has someone else he can contact, and if he doesn't, then John should stay far, far away from him.

But curiosity wins out in the end all the same. He stands up, closes his laptop lid, and then steps out of the room, and then out his front door.

Another text comes through the moment he hears his door click shut behind him.

There's a key under the  
doormat.  
SH

You realise that's literally  
the most cliche place to  
keep a key, right?

If anyone was desperate  
enough to break into my  
house, they could break a  
window. Giving them another  
option just ensures that they  
will break into the house in a  
way that does not cause damage  
to the building.  
SH

John can't decide if that makes sense or is the dumbest idea he's ever heard.

He walks across to the house next door. He's vaguely aware of the number of people in the street, walking or driving past, and he hopes that, if he is murdered or abducted, someone will remember seeing him head into this building. Then he thinks that, if he is murdered, it won't really affect him, if anyone discovers who did it or not. It might affect his sister, when he's reported missing. At least, it might affect his sister if she's sober enough to feel anything when he is reported missing.

(He has a rather unpleasant moment of wondering who would miss him, if he was murdered. He then proceeds to lock that thought away in the back of his mind, under the category of 'Things to Think About Never', next to memories of friends dying before he could save them, and an unfortunately clear memory of a bullet going through his shoulder).

John finds the key beneath the doormat, just as Sherlock said he would. It strikes him as he reaches for it that he's not sure why Sherlock needs him to unlock the door himself, as opposed to Sherlock coming to the door and letting him in. Does Sherlock need help because he's unable to get to the door, somehow? He had said he doesn't need urgent medical attention, but that doesn't mean he might still need medical attention, albeit not as urgently as others.

Alternatively, maybe he's making John open the door so that he can strike while John is fumbling with the key, and proceed to handcuff him and torture him.

Those thoughts also get pushed out of John's mind.

The key slides smoothly into the lock – so, clearly it's the right key, and Sherlock hasn't tried to distract him by giving him one that doesn't fit – and the door clicks when John turns it. He turns the handle, and pushes the door open, looking around for anything lurking, too close for comfort, by the door, waiting to attack.

There is no sign of danger, but that doesn't quite shake off the sensation that there is a psychopath somewhere further in the house.

The layout of Sherlock's house is much like John's, but that's where the similarities end. John could be considered a minimalist, simply because he doesn't have the money to spend on things he doesn't need (or really, really want, in the case of _Doctor Who_ DVDs). Every item he has some sort of sentimental attachment to, like photographs from Afghanistan and dog tags, are hidden in a box under his bed, because they also bring back a number of less-than-pleasant memories that he'd rather not be subject to on a regular basis, if he can help it.

Sherlock, however – Sherlock is clearly not a minimalist by anyone's standards. From the front door, John can only see the living room, and he can see that it is a cluttered mess. Papers are lying all over the place, several of them attached to a wall. Much of the floor is difficult to see because of the items lying on it, some looking as though they've simply fallen from the table or chairs while others look like they've been placed there intentionally, perhaps because Sherlock either could not find anywhere else to put them or perhaps because he simply couldn't be bothered to look.

John remembers being told to clean his room as a child, remembers his mother telling him that his room looked like a pigsty, or like a bomb had hit. If his mother had seen this man's house, then John's room, relatively, would have looked pristine.

"Hello?" John calls into the house, cautiously closing the door behind him, but not locking it, just in case he does need to make a quick escape.

The response comes from down the hall, past the living room. "In here."

If the layout of the house is much like John's, then John is reasonably certain that Sherlock's voice came from the kitchen, or perhaps the dining room. He walks slowly, taking a moment to glance into the living room as he passes it, taking in what he couldn't see from his position by the front door. There's a skull sitting on the mantelpiece, which immediately attracts John's attention. John sincerely hopes that skull did not belong to anyone who had entered Sherlock's house before John.

He's not sure what he expects to find, as he heads further into the house. He's not sure what his neighbour needs help with, and he cannot imagine anything that would require anyone to ask help from someone they barely knew, unless it was for a medical reason. He's not sure what medical reason would lead someone to calling for help from a next door neighbour and not a more familiar doctor, or even an ambulance.

He's not sure what to expect, at all.

But it's most certainly not what he finds.

The first thing he notices is that Sherlock is sitting on the floor, in front of his refrigerator. His legs are stretched out in front of his body, and he's leaning back against the fridge door. John thinks at first that maybe Sherlock _did_ fall, that maybe he has actually injured himself and needs help getting back on his feet, and then John sees the position of his arms. They're stretched up above Sherlock's head, and it takes John a second to realise that they're not stretched up there as though he's trying to get John's attention. Silver handcuffs are closed around his wrists, with the chain linking through the handle on the fridge door.

John stares.

Sherlock says, "Hello."

For a moment, John is silent, taking in the situation. He wonders momentarily if someone has broken into the flat to attack Sherlock or take some of his belongings, and they've taken advantage of the box of handcuffs that Sherlock had delivered previously in order to incapacitate him, but he quickly decides that that idea sounds a little too ridiculous. What are the chances of someone breaking into Sherlock's house now that Sherlock just so happens to be in possession of handcuffs?

"What happened?" John asks, taking a step closer to where Sherlock is sitting. His eyes flicker over the cuff, and Sherlock's wrists, which he notices are red and raw beneath the metal. He wonders how long Sherlock has been sitting there.

Again, he wonders _why_ Sherlock is sitting there. Who could have restrained Sherlock, using handcuffs that were delivered to Sherlock, under Sherlock's name?

As it turns out, the answer to that question is: Sherlock.

"An experiment," Sherlock explains, tugging on the cuff again and then wincing as it rubs against his already-raw skin. John immediately holds up one hand in a wordless gesture to say _Don't do that, you'll make it worse_.

"Experiment?" he repeats, and Sherlock rolls his eyes.

"Repetition is unnecessary, Doctor. Yes, an experiment. I was proving a point to Lestrade."

"Lestrade?"

"Do you always echo what people say? Detective Inspector Lestrade. I was proving that the handcuffs his team uses are inadequate in comparison to other sets available on the market. The sets that he and his team use are far too easy to escape from, it's a wonder they manage to arrest anyone."

"But you're currently handcuffed to your fridge, and asking me for help," John says slowly. "So you obviously can't get yourself out. Doesn't that mean that the handcuffs work?"

The expression on Sherlock's face says that John has just said something tremendously stupid. "No," he says, speaking slowly, as though he was talking to a child. "The handcuffs that Lestrade uses are over there." He nods his head in the direction of something on the floor, and it's only now that John realises that, sitting next to him, are three more pairs of cuffs. He picks up the one on the far left, which Sherlock had nodded to, looking at it closely. Upon inspection, he realises they're not in perfect condition, like they were when they were brand-new and accidentally delivered to John's door. There are tiny scratch marks around the keyhole.

"The other two cuffs were equally inadequate," Sherlock continues. "Took me less than fifty seconds to open the last one, so I suppose I can commend Lestrade on not choosing the worst option available. Regardless, he could clearly do better. This one, for instance, is a far superior design. The way that the lock is positioned means that I can't get to it with both my hands cuffed, even if I have access to my lock picking set. Of course, it's only adequate if it's used on both hands – I cuffed my right hand earlier and tried picking the lock with my left, and that was easy. Regardless, it's still more suitable than the other three, including the one Lestrade uses, given I managed to get free from all of them even with both hands cuffed."

John looks at the way Sherlock's wrists are held above his head, and the chain that threats through the door handle. "How did you manage to cuff yourself?" he asks.

Sherlock stares at him. "That's your question? I've just told you that I've managed to break myself free from three different pairs of handcuffs, and you're more interested in how I got my hands up there in the first place? What _is_ it like in your head?"

John holds his hands up in defence. "All right, all right, be nice. Are you expecting me to pick the locks now? Because I don't know how to do that."

"Of course you don't," says Sherlock. "What need would an army doctor have for the ability to pick locks?" He pauses, and then adds, "Well, I expect it would not be completely useless if you were held prisoner, but I doubt you'd have access to a lock-picking set, nor would you be unattended for long enough to use it."

John tenses at the thought. Relative to some of his friends, he was lucky. The worst of his injuries is the wound in his shoulder. For some of his friends, the wounds run far deeper, scars in hearts and in minds even more severe than those that come with simply being in war and watching people you love die. John's heard the stories of torture. Just hearing it mentioned in passing, by a man who has no idea what he's talking about, makes him feel sick.

His tone sharper than intended, he asks, "How did you know I was an army doctor?"

Sherlock shrugs his shoulder, the action made awkward by the position of his arms above his head. "Tan, posture, haircut, psychosomatic limp. Obvious. Dull. Moving on."

"Psychosomatic limp?" John repeats. "What makes you say it's psychosomatic?"

"You don't put that much weight on your cane when you stand," Sherlock says, nodding his head in the direction of John's cane. "You limp badly when you walk, but it seems you forget about it when you're standing. You wouldn't forget about any sort of pain if it had a physical source."

John's therapist has said the same thing. Obviously, she's not worked out the source of his limp through examining his posture, but she's had access to his medical records. She knows as well as he does that the only major injury he sustained in Afghanistan was the wound in his shoulder, which should have no impact on his ability to walk. However, John has always dismissed the idea that the injury didn't have a physical source. It's never made sense to him that something that is, effectively, all in his head, could cause him so much pain. She's his therapist, not his doctor. She's not going to be right about everything, especially that which refers to anything physical.

Hearing a complete stranger, who somehow worked out that he was an army doctor, say exactly the same thing is disconcerting, to say the least. His leg twinges a little and he chooses not to comment. Instead, his gaze returns to the handcuffs. "Okay," he says, "so if I'm not picking locks to get you out, where's the key?"

"The box is on the table," Sherlock replies, and John looks over his shoulder. The box in question - the one that was initially delivered to John's house – is indeed on the table, and he walks over, peering inside. There are still two pairs of cuffs in there – two that, John presumes, Sherlock hasn't gotten to testing yet – and six different sets of keys. He frowns.

"Which key?"

Sherlock shrugs again, the attempt just as awkward as the last. "How should I know?"

John bites back a sigh, and grabs all six keys. One of them has to work, after all.

He walks back over to the fridge, and it takes him a moment to lower himself to the floor. He puts his cane down by his side, crouches, and then he has to carefully slide his bad leg behind him so that he can sit down on his knees. The man sighs and rolls his eyes, but John ignores him. He doesn't know John's body like John knows his own body. They're not of the same mind; Sherlock isn't experiencing the pain that John is experiencing. If Sherlock _could_ feel it, then he could talk.

He leans over the cuffs, inspecting them in the hope that a good look at the keyhole will give him a better idea of which key to use. "How did you text me in this position, anyway?" he asks.

Sherlock tilts his head towards the floor, and John notices that, among the pile of his cuffs, is his phone. "Voice activation," he says. "I'm surprised everything came through correctly; the voice recognition software is notoriously unreliable."

"You must be an eloquent speaker," John comments absently.

"Obviously."

Staring at the keyhole doesn't give John much of an idea of what key he needs, other than the fact that it's small. All of the keys are small. He ends up choosing one at random, and he leans over to insert it into the hole on one of the cuffs. "So, you work for the police?" he asks after a pause.

Sherlock scoffs. "Not exactly. I _aid_ the police, when they're out of their depth. Which is always."

John thinks that that sounds exactly like 'working for the police', but he doesn't say this out loud. He jiggles the key, but it quickly becomes apparent that it doesn't fit. He puts it aside, separating it from his pile of unused keys, and he grabs the next. "And you test handcuffs?" he asks as he leans over to try Key Number 2.

"Not usually, no," Sherlock replies. "As I said, this was an experiment. I was bored. And I was proving a point."

John hums. "Some way to pass time." The second key fits the lock, but it doesn't turn. John hopes he doesn't have to try all six keys to find the right one. As he reaches for the third, he looks over Sherlock's wrist, taking in the state of his skin. "How long have you been here for?" he asks.

"I've been testing handcuffs since this morning," Sherlock replies. "However, as I said, I did manage to escape from the last few unaided, so obviously I've not been handcuffed to the fridge all morning."

"All right, so how long _have_ you been handcuffed to the fridge?"

"What time is it?" Sherlock asks, which is a slightly worrying response.

John doesn't have a watch on him, so he goes off the time he remembers seeing on his phone the last time he checked it. "Almost four, I think."

"Approximately eighty minutes," Sherlock replies. "Give or take, depending on how accurate your estimate of time is."

John sits back on his heels to stare at the other man. "Jesus Christ," he says. "You've been here for over an hour?"

Sherlock shrugs. With his arms above his head as they are, it looks more like he's straining his neck. "I wasn't about to admit defeat quickly," he says.

"Christ," John says again. "What would you have done if I wasn't home? Or if I hadn't answered your text and come to help you – which, might I add, I was tempted to do, given I don't actually know you."

"You know me as your neighbour, so it was hardly as though you were responding to the request of someone you've never met," Sherlock says. "And, as long as you were home, I knew you'd decide to help. You'd have been curious. You wouldn't have been able to resist. Had your curiosity not won out, I'd have informed you of the position I was in, and you'd have come then because of your moral compass. Had you not been home, I'd have contacted someone else. You were just the closest and thus the person who would take the least amount of time to get to me, and so I knew you were my best bet."

"You don't know me," John points out. "How do you know anything about how curious I'd be or about my moral compass?"

"You're an army doctor; of course you have a moral compass. Curiosity is a given, regarding the data you have about me. We've had one face-to-face encounter before now, during which you returned to be a box of handcuffs that had been mistakenly delivered to your address. Of course that would pique your curiosity, when coupled with my request for help."

John doesn't want to admit that the man has a point. It's not like John didn't wonder at first what the handcuffs were for, and it's not like he wouldn't have been dying to find out what Sherlock wanted when he got the text. He reaches for the next key, and then sits up on his knees so he can reach the handcuff. "You know, when I got your delivery, this is definitely not what I thought you'd be using the handcuffs for."

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Sherlock frown. "What did you think they'd be used for?" Sherlock asks.

John very carefully does not answer that question – or meet Sherlock's eyes for a moment. Fortunately, the lock clicks as he turns the key, which makes for a rather good distraction from the topic.

The handcuff opens, and Sherlock's hand begins to slide out, but immediately, John grabs his wrist (below the marks on his skin, not wanting to cause him any extra pain). He drops the key so that he can grab the handcuff as well, before it can slide back out from the fridge handle and let Sherlock's other, still-cuffed wrist fall to the floor. He manages to shift his grip after a moment so he's holding onto both of Sherlock's wrists, holding them above his head. Sherlock's expression is confused.

"You're going to have a bad case of pins and needles if you let your hands fall," John explains. "You need to lower it slowly, so the blood can start circulating again."

"I let my hands fall when I freed myself from the other cuffs."

John shakes his head. "You weren't up here for nearly as long with the other cuffs. You won't have the strength in your arms to hold them up. Your arm will go numb, and it will fall, and it will hurt. I'll lower them, slowly, and then I'll unlock your other wrist, okay?"

Sherlock glares, apparently dissatisfied with the fact that he's not being allowed to do such a simple task, but he doesn't try to pull his wrist away from John's grip. This may, in part, be because he doesn't have the strength in his arm to do that. "Fine," he mutters.

"This is what you get for asking a doctor for help," John says. "I'm going to see if you have anything for your wrists, too, when we're done."

"That's completely unnecessary."

"Look at the state of your wrists. It's completely necessary."

Sherlock narrows his eyes. "I can take care of myself."

"No, you can't, you were handcuffed to the fridge. So, now you're stuck with me helping you. Don't act like it's such a bad thing." Sherlock gives him an unimpressed look, and he adds, "If you wanted to be left here, you should have asked someone with a weaker 'moral compass'."

The expression on Sherlock's face is not unlike one you would see on a petulant child, but he doesn't argue back, and they lapse into silence for a few minutes. John lowers Sherlock's arms slowly, incrementally, feeling the weight in his hands change as Sherlock gradually gets his strength back, the blood rushing through his veins and circulating his body like it should be.

When Sherlock's hands reach his lap, John releases his wrists, and asks, "How do they feel?"

"Fine," Sherlock replies shortly, and John gets the feeling that he would have gotten that answer regardless of whether Sherlock was fine or not.

So, John says, "Can you clench your hand?"

Sherlock does, without complaint and without too much of an issue. The movement is a little bit jerkier than it might be if someone who had not had their arms held above their head for over an hour tried it, but when Sherlock unclenches and clenches his hand a couple of times it becomes noticeably easier.

"Good lad," John says, and he sits back on his heels. Sherlock rolls his shoulders, undoubtedly aching from the position, but John's attention is more focussed on his wrists. Even with his blood circulating normally again, the skin on his wrists is bound to hurt. "Where's your first aid kit?" he asks.

"I don't have one."

John raises his gaze to stare at him. "Seriously?" he asks, and when Sherlock nods his head, he continues, "Do you have – bandages or antiseptic or anything?"

Sherlock frowns in thought. "Possibly," he says slowly.

John expects that sentence to continue with a more elaborate answer. When it does not, he prompts, "Do you know where they would be?"

Sherlock shrugs. "Haven't the faintest."

"Right," John says. He shifts to stand up, wincing as his knees protest from being sat on for so long, and he grabs his cane to help him get to his feet. His bad leg hurts, but it's not unbearable. He pushes it to the back of his mind as much as he can. "I'll try the bathroom cabinet then, shall I?"

Sherlock shrugs again. His eyes are on John's cane, and the expression on his face looks disapproving. John ignores that, too. The man can go ahead and claim that John's limp is psychosomatic all he wants; it's not about to change the fact that John has a limp.

"Right," John says again, and then he turns. He's reasonably certain the layout of the house will be the same as his own, so he heads off down the hall in the direction that his bathroom would be. Sure enough, it's almost where John would have expected to find it – it's on the opposite side of the hallway, but it's around the same spot as the bathroom in John's house.

After a couple of minutes of searching, John manages to find some bandages and a small bottle of antiseptic, pushed away to the back of the cupboard under the sink. The antiseptic bottle is almost full, looking as though it has been used maybe once or twice before. The roll of bandage has clearly been used more than the antiseptic, but there's still a large roll of it under the sink. John hopes that the reason for this, and the reason why Sherlock doesn't have a proper first-aid kit, is that he doesn't usually get himself into situations where he requires medical attention. He has a feeling that the real reason is that Sherlock doesn't care enough to actually treat any sort of injuries properly even when he should.

He takes the gauze and the antiseptic, and, after a moment's searching, also finds some cotton balls. He takes it back to where he left Sherlock in the kitchen, expecting to find him still on the floor. Instead, he finds Sherlock at the dining room table, in the process of closing another cuff around his wrist.

"Oh, no you don't," John says, walking over to Sherlock as quickly as he can manage while holding a cane in one hand and a small pile of things that should be in a first-aid kit in the other. Fortunately, Sherlock froze when John entered the room, looking like a child with his hand caught in the cookie jar, and he doesn't try to close the cuff around his wrists before John gets there. Sherlock's gaze flickers to the pile of first-aid things in John's hand.

"You found some, then," He says, sounding surprised.

"Didn't you think I would?" John asks, putting them down on the table and taking the cuff from Sherlock before he can do any more damage to himself.

"I didn't think you would quite so quickly," Sherlock replies. "I was certain I'd have enough time to get myself out of another pair of handcuffs before you came back."

"The last pair took you about an hour and a half to get out of, with help. What made you believe that you could actually break out of another pair within the few minutes that I left you alone?"

"Aside from that last pair, the other handcuffs only took me a couple of minutes, at most. The one that I required assistance with is undoubtedly a design that not all companies have adopted, yet, so I'd presume that this one would be more similar to the ones that took minutes to break out of, rather than the last one."

John rolls his eyes, and he pulls out of one of the chairs. "You need to give your wrists some time to recover before you go hurting them again. Even a couple of minutes would hurt them more. Now, sit."

Sherlock glares, but he sits, and John sits beside him.

"This is completely unnecessary," Sherlock says yet again, eyes following John's movements as he pours some of the antiseptic onto a cotton ball.

"I told you already that it's completely necessary," John replies. "As are the bandages that I'm going to put on you after this. Now, are you going to complain and make this take longer or are you going to behave yourself?"

Sherlock's petulant-child expression comes back, but he holds out one hand without complaint.

John supports his wrist with one arm, holding the cotton ball in the other. "This might sting a bit," he warns, and then he places the ball against the raw skin, beginning to rub antiseptic over it. He feels Sherlock's muscles tense just a little at the first contact, but he doesn't hiss in pain or jerk his hand away. Sherlock's expression is hard, and his gaze fixes somewhere over John's shoulder.

They stay silent as John dabs antiseptic on the wounds, finishing with both wrists before he grabs the bandages. Sherlock opens his mouth when John starts to unroll the gauze, but John gives him a look that tells him not to complain, and, fortunately, Sherlock shuts his mouth without a word. Sherlock keeps his hands extended in front of him, and he waits as John wraps the bandages around Sherlock's wrist (a little thicker than he normally would, just on the off chance that the madman in front of him decides that it is a wise idea to handcuff himself again when John leaves). He cuts the gauze with the scissors that he found on the table next to the box, and he makes sure the ends are secure before releasing Sherlock's wrist.

"There," he says. "I'd tell you to leave that on for a couple of days and avoid anything that might hurt your wrists more, but I get the feeling you're not going to listen to me anyway."

"Good observation," Sherlock says, looking at the bandages with distaste. John knows better than to believe he can convince this man, this man who is all but a stranger to him, of doing anything, so he doesn't even try. He just gets to his feet, grabbing his cane from where it leans against the table.

"Is that all, then?" he asks.

"For the moment."

John raises his eyebrows. "For the moment?" he repeats.

"Oh, we're back to repetition. I thought we'd moved past that," Sherlock says. "Yes, that is what I said. I don't require any more assistance with my experiment. However, one thing has become clear to me today."

"Oh? And what's that?"

"That you could be a very valuable assistant to me."

John frowns. "Excuse me?"

"You're a doctor with a moral compass, and you're conveniently located next door to me. I may be in need of help again in the future, be that relating to another experiment, or to a need for medical attention. Rather than seeking out help from any other doctor, it seems infinitely more convenient to just contact the one next door."

"And who says the one next door is willing to help you?" John asks.

Sherlock smirks. "Your moral compass does."

(John thinks, he's probably right.)

Sherlock follows him to the door to see him out, holding it open as John steps outside. "I suppose," John says, "I'll be seeing you around, then."

"I expect so," Sherlock replies. "Afternoon, John Watson."

The door shuts behind him, and John thinks to himself that Sherlock might be the strangest, most interesting person he's ever met.

Maybe it's something he can write about on his blog.


	3. Last Minute Panic

**Author's Note:** It's been a busy couple of weeks, I apologise for the delay. Thanks for sticking around!

As always, a million thank yous to the most brilliant beta reader in the world, Becca (Ao3's LlamaWithAPen).

* * *

Prompt from an AU post on Tumblr by Tumblr user cliffnotesofanerdgirl: _Neither of us bought the expensive textbook but there is only one copy in the library and it can't leave the building._

 **Last Minute Panic**

University textbooks have no right to be as expensive as they are, John thinks, as he makes his way to the library.

Really, with the amount that students have to pay just to go to university at all, textbooks should be free. At the very least, they should be discounted more than the lousy 5% off that you get if you become a member of the campus book store, which brings the price down from impossibly expensive to just depressingly expensive. This should especially be the case when the textbooks are compulsory to pass the course. How can they expect to punish a university student for being broke by dooming them to fail on the exam that contains questions only answerable if the textbook has been read?

In John's first year at university, he was such a good student. He saved up his money for weeks so that he could afford to buy the textbooks for all of the courses he was taking. It cost him almost 300 pounds. Then he got to his first class for the year and was told that his thick textbook was needed for a grand total of one chapter, and then was not used for the rest of the semester. One of his other courses didn't even assess him on any of the textbook's information (and he had wasted hours reading the entire thing).

After that, John had done his research. He never bought textbooks before the first lecture, just in case the lecturer chose that point to inform them that the textbook would be required for little to nothing during the semester. He also made sure to talk to people who had done the course in the years beforehand, to find out if it was really worth spending his money on the required textbook. By the time he reached his third year at uni (his final year of medical science, before he sat the test that would hopefully get him into medicine), he had managed to get away without buying a single textbook. Thank God for online resources.

This has worked well for him so far. Most of the important content for his classes has been covered in the lectures, that which has not been covered by his professors has been simple enough to find online (or, once or twice, in the copy of the textbook kept in the library), and he's managed to get good grades without spending the small amount of money that he earns on textbooks that do more damage to his bank balance than they do good to his academic performance. So far, he's been fine.

That was, up until he went through the study guide that his biological chemistry professor has very helpfully put online and discovered that there is a section on it that specifically references the one hundred pound textbook that he neglected to buy at the start of the year.

So, with three hours left until the exam, he's all but running to the library to frantically learn everything that he should have been reading throughout the semester and he's mentally cursing the person who told him that he wouldn't need the textbook to pass the course.

He knows the library has a copy of this textbook, because he used it earlier in the semester when doing research for one of his lab reports. He knows it's also in the two-hour loan section, and it cannot be taken from the library, but that's okay. He doesn't need it for much longer than two hours, his final exam looming closer and closer every minute, and he wouldn't be wasting any time travelling from the library to anywhere else on campus when he needs to be frantically cramming.

He walks through the library doors like a man on a mission, heading straight to the two-hour loan section, straight to the shelf he remembers the book being on, and then his stomach drops in horror.

It's _not there_.

John rechecks the shelf twice in case he's missed it, and then checks the shelves above it and underneath it, praying that someone has misplaced it, but it's nowhere to be seen. How can it not be here? How can there be at least one other student in the library who is studying from a textbook that they have not bought within hours of the exam, rather than studying from their own notes? John was foolish enough to not read and take notes on this textbook section earlier in the year, when related information was mentioned in the lectures. How _dare_ anyone else be in the same boat?

"Can I help you find anything?" asks a woman beside him, and he looks over, recognising the librarian who usually sits behind the desk. She's never come out to help him find anything before; John's only ever seen her watch passively as students browse through the shelves. Maybe he's just looking frantic enough to warrant assistance this time.

"The textbook," John says unhelpfully, and then clarifies, "for the third-year biochem course."

The woman looks first at the shelf that John has just been searching, and John wants to scream, because he's got less than three hours until this exam and he's _already checked there_. She's not nearly as rushed as he is, and he wonders if that's because she doesn't know that there's an exam in three hours, or because she _does_ know and she's decided to make it her life's mission to make students' lives miserable. The latter explanation does seem a bit ridiculous, but John wouldn't put it past her. Maybe this is her way of taking revenge on students who talk in the no-talking zones in the library.

After a minute of searching and finding nothing, the woman makes her way over to the catalogue computer (at her leisurely pace), and she types the name of the textbook into the search bar.

John wonders why she didn't just check that first, rather than wasting time searching on the shelves for a book that might not be there. He does not complain about this aloud, but he's fairly certain that the way that he shifts his weight between his feet gives away precisely how frustrated and impatient he is. The librarian probably knows, given that John has already come to the conclusion that the librarian is an evil witch in disguise who feeds on the souls of stressed students.

(So maybe he's being a little overdramatic. He has two and a half hours left until his exam, he feels like that justifies a little bit of exaggeration.)

The webpage loads (finally), and the librarian frowns. "Huh," she says. "That's odd."

John looks over her shoulder at the screen rather than wasting any more time waiting for the librarian to explain what is odd. He sees it for himself a second later; according to the online catalogue, the textbook is there on the shelf.

The librarian straightens up and moves to go back to the shelf, muttering to herself. "That's odd," she says again. "It should be right here..."

But at this point, John has tuned her out, because he has seen his textbook.

His textbook is in the arms of a tall stranger, underneath two other books on similar topics.

And it is just about to leave the room.

The man has not quite reached the reserve desk yet, which is why the online catalogue says that it should still be on the shelf. However, when John first saw him, he was only a few steps away from the self-help reserve desk, and when John processed that the textbook was within the pile of books that the man is about to reserve, he was only a step away, and now the books are on the desk and just about to be scanned, which means that John needs to act _now_.

"Thanks for your help," John says to the librarian, the words spilling out of his mouth so quickly in his rush that he's not actually sure that they sounded like English, but that is hardly his concern. He walks up to the man at the desk, mentally coming up with some kind of argument, some way of explaining to the man that, if he is borrowing three different textbooks, surely he can focus his attention on the two textbooks that John doesn't want and lend John the biochem textbook for at least a little while, just while John frantically tries to cram all of the information he needs from his textbook in his head –

He reaches the self-help reserve desk, opens his mouth to start his wonderfully eloquent speech on why John deserves the textbook more than this stranger, and ends up saying, very bluntly, "I need that."

The man looks over at John, his gaze bright, piercing. He eyes John up and down, and John feels oddly like he's being dissected.

"No," the man says, and he turns back to the desk to scan his textbooks through.

The rational part of John's mind tells him that maybe that's fair, maybe the man needs the textbook for the same exam that John does, maybe he's just as stressed as John is, and, to be fair, the man was ever so slightly more organised, as he did get to the library, and to the textbook, first.

The irrational part of John's mind starts referring to the stranger as _The Book Thief_ and entertains a very brief but very enjoyable daydream about fighting the man, taking the book, and running for the hills.

(Which, no, he won't _actually_ do, but he's running off too little sleep and too much coffee and the image puts him in a slightly better mood.)

John clears his throat before he responds, so that this time he does actually manage to form a more eloquent sentence. "The exam is in just over two hours and I haven't been able to buy the textbook this year. I don't need it for long; maybe you can read one of your other textbooks while I go through this one, and then I'll give it back as soon as I'm done."

The man very calmly scans one of his textbooks through, then the next. "Sorry, no can do," he says, sounding not sorry at all. "I also have this exam and I need to read this textbook first; the other two are for the exam I have an hour after this one."

John's frustration and stress surrounding the fact that he is not currently in possession of the book he needs for his impending doom exam ebbs away a little at that. The only thing worse than having an exam in two hours is having _two_ exams within a few hours. It justifies the man's right to have the book a little more.

(Only a little, though. John still hates him for existing.)

"Don't they usually make sure that your exams don't end up being back-to-back?" he asks.

The Book Thief nods shortly. "Generally, yes. However, there's only so much that they can do when you are doing six courses."

Any sympathy that John felt for the man due to his unfortunate exam timetable fades, because with that kind of workload, the man only brought it on himself. Is he crazy? The average student is recommended to take four courses per semester – which is precisely the amount John takes – and he knows that many of his peers only take two or three so that they can juggle work commitments and not die from stress. He had one friend who took five courses at the start of the semester one year and immediately dropped back down to four as soon as he decided which of the five was his least favourite. He's never heard of anyone taking six courses.

There is no way this man was thinking straight when he made the decision to enrol in and remain in six different courses.

Or maybe John heard wrong.

For the man's sake, John hopes he heard wrong.

"Six?" he repeats.

It turns out that he did not hear wrong, however, because the man nods once. "I get bored," he says by way of explanation, and he puts the last textbook through the scanner.

(John's mind starts referring to The Book Thief as _The Madman_.)

It explains why John doesn't recognise the man, John thinks to himself. John is a good student. He goes to all of his lectures and does all of his readings and stays on top of any sort of assignment. However, as the lectures are technically non-compulsory and are all recorded and put online at the end of the day, he knows that many students choose to give the lectures a miss and watch them in their own time (often on double-speed) when they get home. If The Madman standing before him is taking more than the recommended amount of classes, there's almost no way that he would be able to attend every lecture and would have to listen to at least some of them online. Maybe he listens to them all online, and does all the study in his own time.

Or maybe he has done none of the study up until now, and that's why he's currently reserving three books on the day of his two exams.

The man taps on the touch-screen at the reserve desk, making it official that he has reserved the three books, including the one book that John needs, and John is getting increasingly desperate.

"Look," he starts, "we're both kind of in the same boat here –"

"Hardly," says the man, cutting him off. "You are clearly only taking four courses, so you have a decreased workload and can scarcely be compared to me in that respect."

"Yes, well, that was your stupid decision to take six courses, wasn't it?"

The man gathers the books in his arms and looks over at John, raising an eyebrow. "And it was your decision not to buy the textbook."

John opens his mouth to protest, to tell the man that it wasn't his decision, that money is tight, but it sounds like a pathetic excuse even in his own head. If he had wanted to, he would have found a way to afford the textbook. But, unfortunately, The Madman is right; he found excuses not to.

The man turns away, signalling that the conversation is over – at least in his mind – and John is running out of chances and running out of hope. So, in a tone that he realises sounds almost pathetic after it comes out of his mouth, he says, "Can we share?"

The man turns back to face him, which John takes as a good response, and he continues. "I assume we both want the same chapter that's referenced on the study guide. We can read it at the same time. That way, we both win." When the man's expression doesn't change, he adds, "Please," for good measure.

The man stares at him for a long moment, and then thankfully, _thankfully_ , nods his head. "Fine," he says, and he jerks his head in the direction of the tables. "Come on."

They waste another few precious minutes searching for a table – or at least a couple of chairs – before they accept the fact that every single one of them is taken. John is fairly certain that at least half of them are taking not by people frantically studying for their exams like John wants to be, but by people sleeping on their desks, heads pillowed on piles of textbooks. The library always seems to look like this the closer it gets to exam period. They open the library for twenty-four hours, and suddenly it becomes everyone's home away from home. You need to get there first thing in the morning if you want to get a table, and sometimes even that's impossible, because people have either left their belongings to mark their table as taken, or they are already there, asleep on the desk.

They could leave the library, find one of the outdoor benches or one of the campus cafes, but that will waste more time. John will study anywhere right now. Fortunately, The Madman seems to feel the same, because upon realising that there are no available tables, he turns to John and says, "I hope you don't mind the floor."

They choose a spot near the wall, so they're not blocking the path for anyone who walks this way. The stranger sits first, sitting cross-legged, and he sets the textbook up in front of him, open to the page they need. John takes a similar position first, and then realises that the space taken up by having their legs in that position means that he is further away from the man and further away from the book. So, he uncrosses his legs and stretches them out in front of him instead.

Textbooks aren't made for two people to share and still get a good view of the page. In fact, textbooks aren't even good to read when you're by yourself – sitting them on a desk, or on the floor, eventually puts strain on your neck from leaning over in one position for so long. However, John's priority isn't the strain that this position on the floor is causing him, but instead how close he can get to The Madman, and thus the textbook. He ends up with the outside of his thigh against one of the man's knee, and he leans over to read the textbook so that his arm just brushes against the man's shoulder. The man fortunately does not seem to have a large enough personal bubble to make him want to move away.

Unfortunately, the position is not the only problem that arises as they share the book. Within the first few minutes, they discover another problem: they read at different speeds.

If John had more time, he would be going through slowly, making notes or at least highlighting key words as he went. He knows today that he doesn't have time to do that, not even if he had the book to himself. He doesn't even have time to read every word, so he's speed-reading. Unfortunately, his speed-reading is slower than the Madman's speed-reading. It's only at the second page when the other man reaches to turn the page, and John slams his hand on top of it to stop him. "Give me a second," he says, and he finishes the page before he lets the other man turn it.

There's only ten seconds, at most, between the time it takes the Madman and the time it takes John to read a two-page spread, which is not all that much. However, it begins to add up when he's stopping the man from turning the page for ten seconds after he's finished reading it, every single page. It only takes five minutes for him to get fed up.

"Oh, for God's sake," says the other man, when John next tells him to wait a moment before he moves onto the next section. "How slow do you read?"

"I'm going as fast as I can," John protests. "Are you just skimming it or something? Because I do actually want to retain the information in this at least until the end of the exam."

"You're not going to retain the entire chapter's worth of information no matter what you do," says the man. "You're wasting time trying to read through all of it, even if you are, as you said, going as fast as you can."

John looks up at him and raises his eyebrows. "Okay," he says. "What's your strategy, then?"

The man shifts, and turns the textbook so that it faces John a little more. "With this textbook in particular, it's easy," he says, and John resists the urge to grimace, because as far as he's concerned, this textbook is too dense for his liking. If the Madman is finding it easy, clearly they have very different capabilities, and whatever strategy he is using to get through the book quickly may very well not transfer over to John.

The man points to a word on the page – a keyword that is written in bold, such that it stands out among the rest of the block of text. "Surely by now you've realised that not all of this information is unfamiliar, correct?" he says, and then looks sceptical. "That is, assuming you have been paying enough attention to the content of the lectures and the online readings."

John narrows his eyes. "Of course I've been paying attention, and yes, of course I know that some of this has been covered before. I'm more worried about the things that _haven't_ been covered before, seeing as they will be the things that I fail to get right on the exam if I don't read this textbook."

"Again with the reading. You don't need to read the textbook, and you most certainly don't have the time to read it and still be able to memorise it all for the exam. No, what you should be doing is skimming through to each of the bold keywords and judging if that topic is familiar. If you understand what the word means and what topic it belongs in, then you know that you've covered that topic before – either in this course or a previous one – and there is no point wasting precious brain capacity re-reading it. That information is stored in your head somewhere already. If you find an unfamiliar keyword, then read the section it belongs to, because that will be the information that you need from this book. See? Simple."

John raises his eyebrows in surprise. That method of study actually makes a lot of sense, given they are short on time. He still has time to read all the unfamiliar keywords and topics, and because he's focussing more of his attention on a smaller section of the textbook, he'll likely be able to remember the information better. Additionally, looking at the keywords that are familiar and searching for the information in his mind pertaining to what the keyword means will allow him to refresh his memory.

So, John says, "That's actually not a bad idea."

The Madman – who may be better titled as The Mad Genius – rolls his eyes. "Of course it's not a bad idea. You people fill your heads with all kind of pointless information; reading through the textbook like this will allow you to target the more important information and give that a higher priority in your brain. Now, while this tutoring session has been _fascinating_ , we do have a textbook to read."

"Right," John says, and he turns his attention back to the textbook. The man straightens it up in front of them, turns the page, and they start reading.

And it works. The Mad Genius' method of study works. There are no longer gaps of ten seconds between when the other man finishes the page and when John does – John is still slightly slower, taking a little more time trying to remember if he has covered a certain topic before or not, but now rather than asking the man to stop turning the page every time, John is able to look over the last few keywords on the page when the man reaches for the corner, so that John only has to ask him to turn back to a previous page if he realises, belatedly, that one of the keywords was an unfamiliar one.

They finish the entire chapter with an hour to spare, which is far faster than John would have expected as he was heading to the library earlier, and far faster than John has ever finished a chapter of a textbook before. He doesn't realise how far through the book they've managed to get until the man turns the page, and they find not more blocks of text, but a chapter summary and a page of references. John stares at it for a long moment, wondering if maybe he started reading too quickly, looking at words without really processing them, but as he goes over it in his head he realises that he can remember the topics that had been unfamiliar to him at the start.

It's probably not a method of study he could use normally. After all, this method was only practical for this chapter in question because he is familiar with the majority of the content in it. Had he tried to do this with one of the readings from the start of the semester, he would have ended up needing to read all of it anyway, because he would have gotten to any of the keywords on the page and realised that they were unfamiliar. However, for revising for exams, and for occasions like today, when he knows that he needs the information from this chapter but already knows some of it, it seems to have worked well.

The man, clearly also finished with the chapter, pushes the textbook across the floor so that it's sitting more in front of John than himself, still open on the final page of the chapter. "There's some 'review questions' at the end, if you'd like to waste your time on those," he says.

John skims over them briefly. "You're not going to test your knowledge?"

The man makes a dismissive hand gesture. "You might benefit from them, but I surely won't. They're far too easy. I'm sure if I bothered I could answer them all in a matter of minutes."

John thinks there might have been a faintly hidden insult in there. He raises his eyebrows at the man, and picks up the textbook, tilting it so that John has a clear view of the page but it is now hidden from the other man. "Oh, really?" he says. "All right then." He skims his eyes down the list of review questions, and chooses one at random. "What are the main types of lipids?"

The man rolls his eyes. "I do hope you didn't choose that one believing it to be difficult. Triglycerides, phospholipids, and steroids."

When the man doesn't add to that list for a couple of seconds, John grins. "And waxes," he finishes.

"Waxes," repeats the man. And then again, sounding frustrated with himself, " _Waxes_."

John bites back a laugh. "What was that you were saying? Something about these questions being easy?"

The man glares. "They are easy. It slipped my mind for a second. Had we been asked that on the exam, I would have easily seen once I'd written the answer down that I had forgotten one. I simply am not trying hard enough to answer questions given by you."

"Sure you aren't," John replies. It only makes the man narrow his eyes more.

"Shut up," he says, and then he snatches the textbook out of John's hands, turning it around. "Fine then, why don't you answer one? What's the structure of a phospholipid?"

They spend the rest of the hour in this way, throwing questions back and forth. They start with those that are in the textbook, and when they finish with them, John pulls out his notes and asks questions that he makes up from them, and the man also, somehow, makes up questions without physically having any notes in front of him. It starts out like some sort of competition, like they are trying to be the one who answers the most questions correctly. They are not counting, not properly, but they can keep track, at least vaguely, of who has answered more correctly. Which, unfortunately, is the other man, but if pressed, John will maintain that the only reason for that is because the man keeps making up questions from his own head and so the questions themselves are bad questions.

Competition or not, however, it helps, a lot. It forces John to revise, bringing topics to the forefront of his mind, and listening to the other man answering questions gives him another way of phrasing something or another way of looking at something, to help him understand concepts and remember them. It's quite possibly the most productive pre-exam study session John has ever had, given that, by this stage, he's usually passively reading and re-reading his notes, and so it helps, quite a lot.

When they hit the two hour mark after borrowing the textbook they return it, so that they aren't subject to the unnecessarily expensive library fines, and they walk together to the exam hall, still throwing questions at each other until they reach the courtyard outside of it. Students are already gathering, waiting to go in. John recognises a few faces, though he doesn't go over to join any of them, instead staying with the man, until the doors to the hall are opened and they get ready to file in.

"Thank you, by the way," John says, as the crowd begins to move towards the doors. "For sharing the book and for studying with me."

The man makes a dismissive hand gesture. "You scarcely needed it. You seem studious enough and you seemed to know what you're talking about. I expect you'll be fine."

John raises his eyebrows in surprise at the compliment, but he grins. "Thanks," he says, and then adds, "Hey, I didn't actually catch your name. I'm John."

"You didn't bother asking my name, you mean, before you started demanding I give you the textbook," says the man. There's no real malice in his tone. "It's Sherlock."

John smiles, and they reach the door. "Good luck, Sherlock," he says, and the man – the Book Thief, the Madman, the Mad Genius, Sherlock – nods his head.

"And you," he says, and then they both move into the silent exam hall.

(Of course, in the end, it turns out that nothing from the textbook was on the exam. After that experience, however, John finds he doesn't feel that frustrated.)


	4. Marching Band

**Author's Note:** Today's prompt is the first that I received from one of you reviewers, and let me say, I'm absolutely thrilled about it.

Many thanks to my brilliant beta, Becca (Ao3's LlamaWithAPen).

* * *

Prompt from user GenderBender25: _marching band._

 **Marching Band**

By chance, when John was in high school, he joined a marching band.

Well, no, that wasn't quite correct – in the end, joining the marching band had been his choice. The circumstances that had led up to his joining, however, could be described as chance.

The band had not existed until halfway through his time at the school. It was by chance that he had ended up in the same music class as the girl who had set it up. It was by chance that their assigned seating arrangements put them close enough together to be forced to interact, and this was the reason why John had found out about and been invited to join the band. The band started only with some of the people from his music class; it was by chance that he had been in this class, put in the position where he could make this choice.

(And, okay, maybe a fair portion of the reason why he made the choice in the end was because the girl who set up the band was very, very pretty, and John wanted an excuse to spend more time with her, but, motivations aside, he had still been one of the first to join.)

When he'd first told his friends, it had been a bit of a joke, something to laugh at. John was a music student, yes, but when it came to extra-curricular activities, John was into sports. John was captain of the school's rugby team, and on the days when he did not have training with his team, he would be training himself, or following his own fitness routines. Most of his friends were on the team with him, many of them even more focussed on sport than John was. John had a balance, between sport and academic school work and music; some of his friends, on the other hand, let sport take up all their time, prioritising it over anything else, because it was what they wanted to do with their lives. And some of these friends were almost completely stereotypical, when it came to the divide between sport and music. To them, a marching band was ridiculous and cheesy, and it had been something to laugh at.

It had been a joke to most of the school, at first, too, because the original group was a very small and very unusual marching band. The number of students at the school who could play musical instruments and were willing to join and commit to a marching band was small, and so the young woman who started it all didn't put any limitations on what instruments could be played in the band. This meant that John's clarinet – an unusual (though not unheard of) instrument to see in a marching band in the first place – was joined by a guitarist, a pianist who managed to get her hands on a keyboard that was light enough to be portable, a trombone player, and a drummer who had never actually played the drums but who liked the company of the band members and figured that drums would be easy enough to learn. It wasn't in any sense what would come to mind when someone heard the words 'marching band', but it was where they began.

Odd combination of instruments aside, all of them were talented musicians with a passion for the instrument that they were learning. So, they made it work. It took time, and long practice sessions, and a lot of trial and error when it came to working out what instruments sounded the best together, but they made it work. And when they played at the school assembly, they took everyone by surprise, too.

After that, the band did not have quite as bad a reputation, and people were much more willing to sign up. It expanded, and the bigger it got, the better it got. John had always liked music, but with his involvement in the band, his interest developed into something more like a passion. He looked forward to practice every week, and even, once or twice, tried his hand at composing, so he could offer suggestions to the group from time to time. The large group of people became a strong community, too; although it got so large that people had their own, smaller groups within the group, it was still like one big family, and everyone felt like they belonged. Well, at least John did, he could say that for certain.

But, for John, the marching band was an extra-curricular activity, and not a career. Some of his band members went on to study music at university, some looking for a career in music. But John – John studied to become a doctor, and then he joined the army. His memories of his high school days, his marching band days, were fond ones, but that was all they were – memories. Sometimes, John would wonder if, one day, when he came home from Afghanistan, he might join a marching band again, but for the most part, it was nothing but a fantasy.

Then he got shot, and, despite the hole being in his shoulder, it somehow caused pain in his leg, pain that flared up when he got stressed and kept him limping and relying on a cane when he recovered enough to walk. From then, the memories of being in a marching band could be nothing but memories and dreams, and thoughts of being in a marching band again became an idle fantasy that would never come to pass. After all, how could he be in a marching band if he couldn't march?

OoO

By chance, John happened to be out one day when a marching band came to London.

As time passed following his return to London, John was able to get back on his feet, at least figuratively speaking. He learnt to accommodate the cane like it was a part of his body (a better part than the leg that ached without a mark anywhere to be seen), and he learnt ways to cope with the panic attacks that came with waking up in the dark of the night with the taste of sand and blood in his mouth. It was enough to let him get a job, just locum work at a small surgery, enough to earn money to move out of his bedsit into a nicer flat. He even clicked with his boss at the surgery, enough so that they started dating, spending time together whenever their schedules allowed them both some free time.

It didn't feel like living, not like it had when John had been in Afghanistan. But, he was surviving. It was something.

The day that the marching band had come to London happened to be one of the days that John and his boss – Sarah – had been spending time together. It was his day off work, and it was a quiet enough day at the surgery for Sarah to justify having her lunch outside rather than in her office. They hadn't had a huge amount of time, and they both knew that, so they had decided that it was best for them to just spend Sarah's lunch break at a cafe nearby the surgery. They still had time to pass when they finished their meals, and John had offered to walk her back to the surgery – they could take their time (they would have to, really, given his leg). Then the distant sound of music had caught their attention, and of course, they had to take a detour in the direction of the sound.

Sarah didn't know about John's experience with his marching band. How could she, when it was something he had never deemed relevant enough to talk about? However, marching bands in London weren't something you saw every day, and with the sound of the drums, the music, the commotion, they couldn't resist following the sound until they saw it.

And the sight of the band brought so many memories back in John's mind – memories that he had shut out before now, not because they were bad memories themselves, but because they were good memories, and it hurt, sometimes, to remember the life that John had lost. The band was far more extravagant than John's, of course – it was larger, more professional, and it naturally looked and sounded more spectacular. However, just seeing it was enough to remind John of how much he had loved being in a marching band, even in a small one like the one at his school. He missed it more than he was willing to admit.

There were crowds of people on either side of the street, making room for the band, clapping in time with the beat. It made it difficult for John and Sarah to get a proper view of the band, but John didn't mind that much. He could appreciate the way they sounded even if he couldn't see them properly. However, for Sarah, it wasn't good enough – she grabbed his free hand and all but dragged him through the crowd. At first, he didn't understand why they were moving away from the band and not towards them, until he realised that she was taking him further down the street, so they could find a position with a better view, where they could see the band as it marched towards them.

And what a _sight_. The sound of the music that the band made was brilliant enough, but with their new position, John could only be even more awestruck. Each of the band members was clearly an expert in what they did, playing their instruments in a way that made it look effortless, all while marching in time with the other band members. John could see the footsteps of each of the band members, landing on the ground and rising into the air at the same time, it was almost as though they were watching one man mirrored dozens of times, each of them looking like reflections with the way their outfits matched and the way their movements were synchronised.

There was only one character in the band, at least that John could see, who was not marching in time with the other band members: the tall, dark-haired baton twirler standing front and centre. Rather than marching in time with the other band members, the baton twirler was dancing around, spinning and jumping and throwing his baton in the air, catching it after several brilliantly executed flips. This man alone was enough to make John grateful that Sarah had dragged him to the front of the crowd, because alone, he was breathtaking. He made it look effortless, like every time he tossed his baton into the air it was drawn back to his hand like a magnet, like his hand was a target impossible for the baton to miss. John let his eyes wander the marching band as much as he could, trying to take it all in, but his gaze was continuously drawn back to the baton twirler at the front.

When the band finished their piece, drums booming, trumpets blaring, and the baton twirler at the front catching his spinning baton straight out of the air, the people in the street exploded in applause. John clapped along with the cheering crowd, and then, as the band took their bows, he glanced over at Sarah to see that she had picked something up off the street. Looking over her shoulder, he saw immediately what it was – a flyer announcing that the band was putting on a proper performance at the football stadium that weekend. This performance, marching through the streets of London, was an advertisement to encourage more people to come and see the show.

And it was a brilliant advertisement, because John and Sarah were in agreement that they absolutely had to go.

OoO

By chance, come the weekend, John and Sarah got front row seats.

There was no assigned seating at the stadium, so people just filed in as they pleased, taking a seat on the stands. A front row seat wasn't necessarily better than a back row seat – a back row seat gave a more full view of the band from above, whereas a front row seat gave a better view of the band members near the front. The screens on the sides of the stadium gave everyone a clear view of the most important parts of the show. John had no preference, when it came to choosing a seat, and the nearest empty seat was in the front row, so that was where they sat.

The sight of the band marching through London had been spectacular, but as the show began, it became clear that their advertisement was only a small portion of what they could do. With the size of the field that the stadium afforded them, they were not only limited to what they could do with their instruments; they used the space to make formations on the ground. Rather than merely marching in time, lines swapped and moved, spelling out words with their bodies, or shapes that related to the song, like symbols from movies when they played a theme tune. Although John and Sarah were seated at the front, they were able to see the formations on the screens, and they applauded with everyone else both throughout the pieces and at the end.

John was so very grateful, however, that they had gotten front row seats when it came to one particular piece. The previous piece had left the band members marching into neat lines, and in this piece, they did not move, with the exception of the baton twirler at the front. In the previous pieces, he had spun the baton around his arm or his wrist, or thrown it into the air and caught it, but in this piece, he really let loose. He spun and he leapt and he flipped, using the space at the front of the band, and never once did he miss a beat, never once did he drop his baton.

John had never seen a baton twirler before, so he had nothing with which he could compare this man, but perhaps that only made John think he was all the more phenomenal. The band in high school had been focussed mainly on the way they could make their instruments sound, and not the visual show that they could put on. Seeing the baton twirler here, however, made John realise how much more this visual display could add. The music alone was brilliant, but with the addition of the baton twirler, front and centre – it was an excellent way to keep the attention of every member of the audience trained on them.

When they came to their big finish (complete, appropriately, with the explosion of confetti canons), John was one of the first on his feet to applaud, clapping and cheering and forgetting, just for a moment, that usually he needed to stand with a cane.

OoO

By chance, one week later, John met the baton twirler on the Tube.

John preferred taking cabs, usually, but he forced himself to take the Tube from time to time to save money. It was never the most pleasant trip home – especially not during peak hour, when the carriages were crowded – but it did not take too much longer than taking a cab, and, more importantly, it was cheaper, which was exactly what John needed during the weeks when he was not given as many shifts as he would like.

John had to squeeze between people to get on – it felt like every single person in London had had the same idea as him and had decided to take the exact same Tube home at the exact same time – which made John immediately regret his decision even though his bank account would appreciate it. Fortunately, as much as he hated being seen as weak and as much as he hated his leg, his cane did afford him some privileges – a young woman, as soon as she saw him, vacated her seat so that he could sit down. It still meant he was squished – this time between two people sitting down rather than a crowd of people standing up – but it was still an improvement. At least he did not have to worry about falling on top of whoever stood next to him should the Tube jerk and his cane slide on the ground.

However, the experience of sitting down on the Tube was made worse by the fact that the man next to him had an instrument case in his lap. It might not have been a huge case, but it really should have been on the floor of the Tube and not on the man's lap, because John could feel it poking into his thigh, and what started off as a slight irritation took only a minute to grow into something much greater. John was not about to blow up in a fit of rage, but he was annoyed enough to turn to face the man in order to tell him to get his bloody case out of John's way.

It was at this point, however, that John caught a proper look at the man's face, and it made him hesitate. There was something strikingly familiar about the way the man looked, though John couldn't work out who he was immediately. John had had a lot of friends before Afghanistan that he had put little to no effort into getting in contact with once again following his return, and it was for this reason that the familiarity made him hesitate – there was every possibility that the familiar-looking man was someone that John had been close to once upon a time, someone who might even be offended if John failed to recognise them. His mind was going through lists of the people he spent time with at university, or in his earlier jobs, though no one was popping out to him at the moment. John was convinced, though, that he had seen the man somewhere, and the distinctness of his features made John feel like he wasn't making a mistake, so, rather than telling the man to get his bloody case out of John's lap, he said, "Hey, don't I know you?"

The man glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. The way he was sitting up straight, the height difference between him and John, and the blank expression on his face made it look like he was looking down on John, like John was, in some way, beneath him. "Not likely."

However, despite the man's denial, it was at that moment that John was able to place the face, and his eyes lit up. "Oh," he said, immediately going from annoyed (at the case in the man's lap) to interested. "Oh, I know you. You were in the marching band."

"Yes," the man said shortly, without properly turning to look at John, "although I don't think that counts as 'knowing me'."

John ignored the second part of the reply and continued, "You were the baton twirler."

"Yes," the man said again, and it was clear from the man's short responses that he was not in the mood for a conversation. Which was fair enough, really, because John was generally not in the mood for a conversation either. If someone came up to him on a Tube and started talking, he would probably be annoyed too. So, John decided that he could just say one last thing, and then he would shut up and they could both enjoy the rest of their ride home in peace.

"You were brilliant," he said, turning his attention back to the opposite side of the carriage, straight across from him, to show that he was prepared to leave the conversation at that.

However, it seemed that the compliment – a compliment that John would have expected the man to get all the time – was enough to turn the man's attention onto him properly. He seemed surprised. "Oh," he said. "Thank you."

John offered the man a slight smile and said, "You're welcome", before turning his gaze back to the front.

Unfortunately, when the baton twirler also shifted to face the front again, John realised that he was not content to just sit here in silence – not because he felt any overwhelming need to start a conversation, but because the case in the man's lap was _still_ digging into his thigh. John was not annoyed at the man so much anymore, because he was no longer a stranger in John's mind, but someone who, previously, John had been impressed by. However, this admiration was not enough for John to be willing to sit back and deal with being uncomfortable for the length of the ride.

He turned back to the man beside him and gestured to the case. "Sorry, could you put that on the floor, please?" he asked, which was a lot more polite than the way he would have asked had the man next to him not turned out to be the baton twirler.

The man did, at least, shift a little to move the case in his lap, so that it was not digging quite so hard into John's thigh, but with the size of it, there was only so much he could do. John would have preferred it to be put on the floor, like he had asked, but the man's response to that was to shake his head. "No, I don't want it to get damaged."

Which was fair enough, really, John thought to himself, but it was still annoying nonetheless. He attempted to shift, to angle his body away from the man in a way that kept his legs out of the way of the case. It was largely unsuccessful.

"Why is that coming with you, anyway?" he asked, rubbing his thigh absently. "It seems a bit impractical to carry it around everywhere, given the size."

"It doesn't come with me everywhere," the man said. "However, from time to time it is necessary to transport it. People sitting next to me don't usually complain."

(John thought to himself that, perhaps, people did not usually complain because people were a lot more polite than John, or perhaps the other times that the man had taken the case around, there had been more space on the Tube for him and whoever sat next to him to spread out.)

Rather than stating this, John asked, "What's in it, anyway? It's a bit bigger than you'd need for your batons, isn't it?"

The expression the man gave him made John feel like he had just asked a very stupid question, as did the man's next comment. "Isn't it obvious?" he asked. "It's a violin case."

That caught John's attention, dragging his attention away from the case that was poking into his thigh for a moment. "Oh?" he asked, raising his eyebrows in interest. "You play violin as well as baton twirling."

"The two aren't mutually exclusive. Violin is my main focus, generally, but there is little room for a violinist in a marching band."

John cracked a smile. "Oh, I'm sure you could always be the first. Make it a slightly more unusual combination of instruments. It worked well enough for my band in school."

The man turned his neck to look at John properly, and John noticed his bright eyes flicker down his form and back up again, as though he was examining him. "Ah, yes," he murmured. "Woodwind?"

John blinked in surprise. "Clarinet," he confirmed. "How on earth did you know?"

The man shrugged his shoulders dismissively, making a vague gesture to all of John. "Size of your fingers, shape of your mouth, lung capacity," he said, and John frowned at the mention of lung capacity, suddenly very aware of each inhale. "You'd be best at playing woodwind-type instruments. Bit of a lucky guess, of course – there was every possibility that the instrument you played was not the instrument that I would expect you to have the most success with, but it seems I was right."

"Seems so," John murmured. "That's some lucky guess. I'm impressed."

"Oh?" the man asked. "Most people are made uncomfortable by my deductions."

"Are they? Sounds like a poor reason to be uncomfortable to me. The fact that you could work that out from just looking at me is brilliant."

The expression on the man's face was a mixture of surprise and confusion, making John believe that it really was the case that most people weren't impressed by the man making accurate guesses about their life. John did, however, get the impression that the man was a little bit flattered by the compliment, too.

"Indeed," the man murmured softly after a pause, and John smiled.

After a moment, John shifted the cane in his grip and extended one hand. "I'm John," he said.

The man looked a bit taken aback, but it only took him another couple of seconds to reach out and clasp John's hand in an awkward handshake (awkward because of their position, sitting side by side on the Tube, more so than anything else). "Sherlock," he said, and John smiled warmly at him before releasing his hand so that they could both settle back into their own seats.

"I miss being in a marching band," John said quietly after a few moments of silence, broken up only by the sounds of the wheels rolling along the tracks. "I know my school band wasn't anything spectacular – nothing like yours, of course – but I miss it."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the man's – Sherlock's – gaze flicker to his thigh, and he realised only then that he was rubbing it unconsciously. He clenched and unclenched his hand to make himself stop.

"Is that the only reason why you haven't tried to re-join one?" Sherlock asked, gesturing to his leg and his cane, and John wanted to snap the cane in half, as though punishing the inanimate object would solve the problem. Of course, he knew that the only thing that that would result in was a broken cane and nothing to take his weight as he limped shamefully back home.

Pushing his annoyance at his own body aside, John nodded once. "Yeah," he said. "Can't really be in a marching band if I can't even walk properly, can I?"

"It's psychosomatic," Sherlock said. John turned his head to stare at him.

"Excuse me?"

"Your limp. It's psychosomatic. In your head, if you will."

John pursed his lips and turned his gaze away. "No, it's not," he said, finding himself remembering having this exact same conversation with his therapist. The fact that this complete stranger supported her suggestion did not mean she was right. "Trust me, I know my own body."

"You were in the army, correct?" Sherlock asked, and John nodded shortly, feeling tenser than he had several moments ago.

"Yes. Is that obvious?"

"Your tan and your haircut make it clear enough, coupled with the limp. You were wounded in action. Psychosomatic injuries are common in that setting."

"Yeah, and you know what else is common in that setting?" John asked. "Actual injuries. Gunshot wounds. And things much worse."

"Mm, and you were shot," Sherlock said, looking over John in a way that almost made John feel like Sherlock could see straight through him, straight through layers of clothing to the ugly scar on his shoulder. He reminded himself that people did not have the powers of x-ray vision before he gave into the temptation to angle his wounded shoulder away.

Fortunately, it was at that point that the Tube came to a stop, and it gave John an escape route. "It was nice to meet you, Sherlock," he said, getting to his feet and with the help of his cane. "All the best with your violin and the band."

Then he joined the crowd moving out.

OoO

By chance, John chose to have dinner at a restaurant one night when Sherlock was doing the same thing.

John did not usually eat out. He had a job now, which meant he had more money that he could spend on himself compared to when he was living off an army pension, but he did not work quite enough to be able to spend carelessly. Food was a necessity, but John could – and did, normally – choose cheaper options, making himself something at home rather than eating out. It was surprising how much money you could save just by making your own lunch to take to work instead of buying something from a cafe.

However, tonight was going to be a date night, with Sarah, and John had been prepared to go out. He had been just about ready to go when his phone vibrated, and he received a call from Sarah saying that there had been a family emergency and she would not be able to make it as planned. John didn't blame her. These things happened, and it was outside of her control. However, he was ready to go out, and he had hyped himself up for restaurant food, so he couldn't say he wanted to go and cook. So, he figured he might as well treat himself to dinner, just this once.

The fact that it happened to be the same restaurant where Sherlock, too, was treating himself to dinner, was pure chance.

(Well, either that or Sherlock was stalking him, you could never be too sure).

Lost in thought and paying little attention to his surroundings, John didn't even notice that Sherlock was in the same restaurant until Sherlock slid into the seat across from him. The action was so unexpected that it took John a moment to recognise the man. The fact that he slid into the seat without even asking permission was startling.

The man did not even look at John as he sat down, either. Instead, his gaze was immediately fixated on the window by John's table, staring intently at something outside. Perhaps this was why John did not immediately tell Sherlock to leave him alone; he couldn't deny that he was interested in why Sherlock had come to invade his space like this. "Hello again," he greeted, doing his best to be polite. "Didn't expect to see you here."

Sherlock didn't even acknowledge John's question, let alone respond to it. His gaze remained fixated on the window, and John wasn't even sure if Sherlock had heard him. After a moment, he prompted, somewhat awkwardly, "Um, did you want something?"

The silence stretched between them for another moment, which just made John feel more uncomfortable. However, when Sherlock spoke, that feeling became even worse. Sherlock did not turn away from the window, and he spoke in a hushed tone, as though he did not want to be overheard. "Are you aware that the man in that car has been watching you since you got here?"

John felt his blood run cold, and he turned to look at the window, following Sherlock's gaze to the car that was parked by the side of the road. When he looked closely, he could tell that there was someone in there – he could see the shadow of a person sitting in the front seat. However, he would not have realised that the person was looking at him, not if Sherlock hadn't said so. To John, it looked like the person had their back to John. Maybe they did – maybe they had turned around when they had noticed John and Sherlock looking.

"Why would they be watching me?" John hissed, dropping his voice to a tone as low as Sherlock's, even though there was surely no way that they could be heard by the driver, not through the window.

"I wouldn't know," Sherlock replied with a shrug. "But if you haven't noticed up until now, then there is every possibility that they've been following you for a while." The words were said in a tone that was completely calm, as though Sherlock didn't even care at all that the implications could be that John was in some sort of danger. The only emotion he seemed to be expressing was intrigue. John, however, felt his heart racing.

"What am I supposed to do?" he asked.

"Find out what they want."

John started to speak again, to ask how he was meant to do that, but it was at that moment that the car's brake lights turned off and the vehicle started to move. Sherlock interrupted him with a "Come on!" and all but leapt out of the seat, racing towards the door. And John, his own heart pounding in his chest, rushed to follow.

They ran out into the street, the car already making a turn around the corner, disappearing from sight. John barely had time to glance at the license plate, but he tried to commit the number to memory. There was no way that they could chase it and expect to catch up.

At least, that was what John thought. Sherlock, however, seemed to have something else in mind. He barely even glanced at John when John tried to tell him that he had memorised the license plate number; instead, he squeezed his eyes shut tight, brow furrowed in thought. At first, John thought it was frustration, that Sherlock was beating himself up for letting the car get away. Then Sherlock's eyes lit up, and he exclaimed, "This way!" and barely gave John the time to react before he was racing around the corner, and John was rushing to catch up.

It was like Sherlock had a map of London in his head. Somehow, he seemed to know every back street and alleyway, every way in and way out of tight spots. He was ahead of John the whole time, faster than John, but he never got too far away, yelling, "Come on, John!" every time he disappeared from sight so that John didn't lose track of him. They raced down streets and around corners, and then into an alley and up a fire escape onto the roof of the building. They raced along the rooftop, and then Sherlock, with his impossibly long legs, did some sort of flying leap from the building to the next.

John skidded to a stop at the building's edge, suddenly aware of how high up they were, how long the gap was, how many injuries he would sustain if he fell. Surely he couldn't make that jump. Then Sherlock yelled, "Come on!" and John knew that he had no choice – it was follow, or get left behind. He took a few steps back, took a running start, and made a leap of faith, surprising himself when his feet hit the other side.

The momentum kept him running, but Sherlock hadn't gotten too far ahead. In fact, Sherlock had not gotten beyond the edge of the building. He was standing there, looking down at the street below – perhaps he was trying to find a way down. John slowed his running to a stop before the momentum propelled him right off the roof.

"What happened?" he asked. "Did we lose him?"

Sherlock turned around to face him, but he did not look frustrated, like John would have expected. Instead, he looked... amused?

"I lied," Sherlock said.

"What?"

"The man in the car wasn't watching you." When John's brow furrowed, he continued, "In fact, I doubt he was even parked outside the restaurant for long. He just happened to have stopped when I joined your table."

John took half a step backwards, somehow feeling as though he had been tricked, lured into some sort of trap, though Sherlock was not approaching him or in any other way behaving in a threatening manner. "Why would you say something like that?" he asked.

"I was proving a point."

"What point?"

The amused expression on Sherlock's face only grew. "You ran after me," he said, and then, after a moment, added, "Without your cane."

And it was only in that moment that John realised what had happened. How had he not realised it until now? Was it the adrenaline pumping through his system, the fear that came with thinking that somehow had been watching him, potentially even stalking him? He stared down at himself as though he couldn't believe it (because, in truth, he couldn't). His cane would still be in the restaurant, resting against the seat where he had left it. His stance was even, he wasn't favouring one leg over the other. He was in no pain.

He looked back up at Sherlock again, with an unmasked look of astonishment, and Sherlock's face broke into a grin.

"Now you have no excuse," Sherlock said.

"No excuse to do what?" John asked.

"No excuse to not join a marching band."

John stared at Sherlock for a good two seconds, and then burst into laughter, and Sherlock echoed the sound.

OoO

By chance, Sherlock's marching band held try-outs three weeks later.

By choice, John tried out.


	5. High Shelves

**Author's Note:** I was lucky enough to get a bunch of new prompts after last week, which I'm absolutely thrilled about. Thanks so much to everyone who sent them in - they've all been noted and will be used.

And, once again, a million thanks to my brilliant beta, Becca (Ao3's LlamaWithAPen).

* * *

Prompt from Tumblr user quoth-the-ravenclaw's "library aus (based off my experiences working in a university library)" post _: i'm too short to reach the top shelf and too stubborn to get a stool. you watched me take a running leap for it before you offered to grab the book for me_

 **High Shelves**

John Watson was _not_ short.

Sure, the average height for a man in England was roughly 1.75 metres, and John measured up to 1.69 metres, but that did not mean he was short. The average height took into account all those ridiculously tall outliers, that's all. It did not mean that he was short. He did not feel short, walking around the university grounds; it wasn't like everyone else towered over him. Some people were taller than him, but it wasn't like he strained his neck needing to look up at everyone.

Besides, John was above the average height for a woman, so if a woman who was only 1.61 metres tall was not considered short, then John, being taller than 1.61 metres, was not short either. It was as simple as that.

Height wasn't something that John cared about, really. He'd cared about it growing up, just like everyone else, because children's bodies grow and change and it is something that people keep track of. There was scarcely a year between him and his sister, Harry, and because girls and boys tend to reach their growth spurts at different ages, there was something of a competition between them, for a while, in terms of who grew the tallest the fastest. Harry hit her growth spurt first, and for a while, she was taller than John, which was something she had liked to rub in his face at any opportunity. This had been the point in John's life when he had cared about height the most. However, then John had finally, finally reached his growth spurt, and though he had not shot up like a beanpole like some of the kids in his school, he did grow to taller than Harry, and he stayed that way.

Beyond that, John hadn't really cared about his height. It wasn't an integral part of his identity, after all. John was a biology student, studying to be a doctor. He was the captain of the rugby team. He was a brother, a son, a friend. These were the important parts of his identity. Why did it matter that he did not quite reach up to the average height for a man in England?

(Besides, his height put him at absolutely no disadvantage, and he could easily kick the arse of anyone taller than him if the situation called for it.)

However, there was one tiny issue with being a little bit shorter than the average height: sometimes, John could not quite reach the top shelf.

It wasn't all the time, of course. He could easily reach the shelves in his kitchen, and the top shelf in his cupboard (just as long as he stood on his toes, but really, who didn't need to stand on their toes to reach a top shelf?), but sometimes, the top shelf was just slightly out of his reach. Like the top shelf at the university library.

John did not need to fight with the library shelves very often. The joys of the 21st century included the internet, which meant that most research could be done from the comfort of his own bed, with nothing in his hands but his laptop. However, some assignments required research that dated back into the times when everything was not readily available online, and on these occasions, John needed to venture out into the library to get the hard copy book.

Today was one such day. It was only one book that John needed, but it was an absolute necessity for the assignment he was working on. He'd tried to find it online – or at least excerpts of it – so that he did not have to leave his bed, but to no avail. So, he'd gotten up, dressed, and made it to the university library. He'd worked out what section of the library it would be in, and he had located the shelf, and the book, in question – and, because the universe clearly wanted him to suffer, the book just so happened to be on the top shelf.

There were stools lying around the library for this reason, of course. John wasn't the only person who couldn't reach the top shelf, and he knew of one girl in his class who struggled to reach the shelf even with a stool under her feet. Normally, John would have no problems going and getting a stool, because it wasn't like he'd be the only one.

The only issue was that all of thirty seconds ago, some ridiculously tall man in a long coat that made him look even taller had gone and grabbed a book from the top shelf without even getting on his toes, and John had decided that he could not allow himself to admit defeat and get a stool mere seconds later.

Mr Billowy-Coat was probably not even paying enough attention to John to take note of him grabbing a book from the same shelf, with or without a stool. Even if he was paying attention, it was highly unlikely that he would really care. However, John now had it in his head that he had something to prove – to himself, or to Mr Billowy-Coat, or to the universe itself. All things considered, John was just too stubborn to admit defeat. This was the epic battle of John Watson versus the Library Shelf, and John Watson was going to win.

Unfortunately, it became quickly apparent to him that reaching for the book was not going to lead him to victory. He didn't try to reach for long, knowing that straining on the tips of his toes would be perhaps even more humiliating than grabbing a stool, but in his few seconds that he allowed himself to attempt to reach for it, he discovered that his fingertips could barely brush against the bottom of the spine, let alone actually grasp it and pull it from the shelf.

He could climb the shelves like a ladder, he thought to himself. He would only need to climb up one, maybe two at most, so that he could reach the book. However, John wasn't sure if the shelf would hold his weight. It probably would not crack beneath him, but it was highly likely that he might manage to pull the whole shelf down on top of him. Or maybe he would push it the other way, and maybe it would be like on telly, and he'd make a domino effect and knock down every shelf in the library. Maybe it was better not to risk that, for his sake as much as for every other person in the library who would risk being crushed beneath the falling shelves.

There was one thing left to do.

John looked around briefly, making sure that there were no librarians lurking about, waiting to yell at him for putting a foot out of line. The only advantage to this entire situation was that the book John wanted was on the shelf closest to the wall, which meant that he was relatively hidden. There were no librarians, and very few students, with the exception of Mr Billowy-Coat, who had frustratingly chosen to take a seat at the one table in the library that actually gave him a view of John. If Mr Billowy-Coat had just grabbed his book and been on his way, then John would have not been within anyone's line of sight, and he could have gone and grabbed a stool without experiencing any sort of humiliation. But no, Mr Billowy-Coat had taken the only seat in the library that had left John in his line of sight, and so now John had something to prove – never mind that Mr Billowy-Coat's gaze was fixed on the book and not on John.

Satisfied that there were no librarians around to see him, John took three slow steps back, and then ran at the shelf, springing off the floor at the last minute and grasping for the book. And he almost made it, too. He felt his hand brush against the spine of the book, and if he could just wrap his hand around the book he would be able to pull it from its place on the shelf. Unfortunately, while touching a book after doing a flying leap for it is easy, grasping the book and pulling it from the shelf is a lot more difficult. John's hand slipped away before he had the opportunity to tighten his grip on the spine, and he fell, landing with a thump beside the shelf with no book in his hands.

The fall wasn't from a big enough height to cause any real pain, but landing on one's bottom was still not the most pleasant experience. Regardless, John ignored it as best as he could, scurrying to his feet before one of the librarians came to investigate the thump and found him on the floor. He straightened up his shirt, and glared up the book as though it was solely at fault for his fall (which it kind of was, because if the book was not on the top shelf then John would not have made a running leap for it and would not have fallen on his bottom). He then tried to subtly look over his shoulder to see if Mr Billowy-Coat had noticed his fall.

The table that Mr Billowy-Coat had been sitting at moments earlier was empty, and John had a split second where he hoped that, perhaps, Mr Billowy-Coat got up before John had tried to make a running leap for the shelf and thus had not seen him move. This hope did not last beyond the split second, however, because John took half a step back, and stepped straight into someone standing behind him. He turned his head to look over his shoulder – up over his shoulder, because Christ, the man was tall – and found himself face to face with Mr Billowy-Coat himself.

The man wasn't grinning, or laughing, but John was fairly certain there was a sort of glint in his eyes that said he was amused. Other than that, however, his expression was almost blank, making him very difficult to read. That, coupled with his height, and the fact that his eyes were piercingly bright, made him almost intimidating to look at. Almost. John wasn't going to be intimidated by anyone, never mind that they were well over a head taller than him.

"Need help?" said the tall stranger, and John shook his head quickly.

"Definitely not," he said, turning back to the shelf and reaching for the book again, as though he might have, by some miracle, grown the extra few centimetres in the past few minutes. Unsurprisingly, he had not, but that did not stop him from reaching for it.

"It looks like you need help," the stranger said after a moment, and John shook his head without so much as turning around.

"No, I'm fine."

John heard the rustle of fabric behind him, and when he glanced over his shoulder he noticed that the stranger had crossed his arms over his chest, and was leaning sideways against the shelves, body language saying bored while the odd little glint in his eyes said amused. "You don't look fine."

"I _am_ fine," John said, with a little more force, as though that made his pathetic attempt to reach for a book that was too high up for him seem any less pathetic. "Go back to whatever you were studying."

"What I was studying was dull," the man said, "and this is far more amusing. Besides, you're distracting me."

"I'm distracting you?" John repeated. "How on earth am _I_ distracting _you_? _You_ are distracting _me_ from getting my book."

"You're failing to get your book because you're short. That has nothing to do with me."

John looked over his shoulder purely to glare at the other man, but, unfortunately, he couldn't argue with him. This made the situation all the more frustrating.

"I'm not distracting you," John said, turning back to the shelf and examining it, wondering if maybe he could climb it to reach the book. If he was fast enough, maybe he could get onto the shelf and back off again before it had time to fall beneath his weight. That was how gravity worked, wasn't it?

"You were," the man continued, "when you were trying to run at the shelf. If you make any more noise you'll draw the librarian over, and she'll undoubtedly think I was the one behind it."

"Why on earth would she think that?"

"Because I usually am the one behind any commotion in the library."

John glanced over his shoulder again, the man's statement piquing his interest, just a bit, and tempting him for a moment to ask what the man was referring to. Only for a moment, however, before John decided that holding onto whatever dignity he had left and getting this book off the shelf was more important.

He turned his attention back to the shelf in order to feign disinterest, and said, "Well, don't worry. I don't intend on making any more loud noises, so you can go back to..."

He trailed off at that point, because Mr Billowy-Coat reached past him, grabbed the book off the shelf (without even getting up on his toes, the bastard) and pulled it down, holding it out for John at a height that he could actually reach.

John wasn't sure his dignity could take it.

He glanced down at the book, and then back up at the man holding it. "Actually, I don't think I need it after all."

The man fixed him with a look, raising one eyebrow. "Are you really that stubborn?"

"Um, yes," John replied. "I didn't ask for your help."

The man rolled his eyes. "No, you just went to extreme lengths to try to reach a book without grabbing a stool and ultimately failed. But, whatever you say." He reached past John to put the book back on the shelf – not the top shelf where it belonged, but one shelf below, where John could actually reach – and then moved back over to his desk without a word.

There was no reason for John to be stubborn about it, really. He wasn't gaining anything by refusing to accept the help of the stranger. But, to him it felt like he was losing something – his dignity.

It was distinctly possible that he was being a bit dramatic about all of it.

He glared at the book, and then at the man, who was not looking at him and probably did not even realise that he was being glared at, before turning back to the shelf, and taking the book off it.

"I'm only taking it because the librarian will be annoyed if she discovers it's been put back in the wrong place," he said, as he walked past the man's desk, back to where he had set up his things at one of the other tables.

"Whatever you say," the man said behind him, but John had mostly tuned him out by that point, because he realised that the table he had been sitting at had been taken within the past few minutes while he was at the shelf. He had left his laptop and his bag on the desk, to make it clear that it was taken, and someone had gone over and taken it nonetheless. He had a panicked moment where he thought his laptop had been stolen – which would be really, really bad, because it would be ages before he saved up enough money to afford a new one – but when he scanned the library he realised that it had all been moved to a pile on the floor a metre or so away from the desk.

The relief that John's belongings had not been stolen from him was quickly replaced by anger, because someone had thought they were just entitled to his desk. He had half a mind to go over there and tell whoever it was off for taking his seat, but he decided against it. Raising his voice would just cause unnecessary commotion for everyone else in the library, and get him kicked out, and if the person who was sitting at his desk had decided that they were entitled to move his belongings, they were probably the sort of person who would not easily back down from a fight. That, and John had no way of being certain that the person currently sitting at his desk was the same person that had moved his stuff. He wouldn't want to start a fight to someone who had sat down on what they had believed to be a vacant desk.

It really was not John's day.

Resisting the urge to stomp or to drag his feet like a child throwing a temper-tantrum, John walked over and gathered up his stuff, glancing up at the person sitting at his desk in case he could guilt-trip them with a look and convince them to give John back his seat. That was unsuccessful, given said person didn't even look at him. So, John stood, and scanned around for a vacant desk. It didn't surprise him to discover there were none – whoever had taken his desk wouldn't have taken it if there had been another option.

Well, no, there was one, John realised when he looked around a little longer. Some of the desks were big enough for two people. That included the desk that Mr Billowy-Coat was sitting at.

The man had spread out all his things over the desk, making it look much smaller than it was, but if he kept his belongings to himself then John was certain that there would be enough room for him as well. And it was just his luck, wasn't it, that it was with the one person who had already humiliated John today.

He was being irrational, really. John knew this much. The man had just tried to help – never mind that he had an annoying, amused expression on his face, like he was laughing at John's struggle. John was being far more stubborn about this than he should have been, that was for sure.

And right now, John didn't exactly have anywhere else to sit.

Tucking his laptop under one arm and swinging his bag over one shoulder, he made his way back through the clutter of desks and students, to the desk by the wall where Mr Billowy-Coat was sitting. The man in question looked up at him when he walked over, raising one eyebrow.

"Need help putting the book back, now?" he asked, and John glared at him.

"I need somewhere to sit. Someone stole my desk."

He said this pointedly, in a way that almost sounded like he was blaming the man in front of him for it. The man in front of him seemed to take it that way as well, as he then said, "That's hardly my fault. In fact, if you'd not wasted so much time trying to get the book down, you'd probably still have your desk."

John let out a perhaps slightly over-exaggerated, exasperated sigh. "Can you please just move your stuff so I can sit here?" he said, gesturing to the pile of the man's belongings spread out over the desk. Fortunately, the man didn't argue, moving them out of the way, and John slid into the seat across from him, setting up his laptop and opening up the book.

He had gotten as far as opening up the document that held his assignment, and was beginning to type, when the man spoke.

"It's not that you're defensive about your height."

John glanced up at him over his laptop lid, frowning. "Excuse me?"

"You're frustrated – stressed because of the assignment you're working on, undoubtedly – and you're feeling resentful because you couldn't get the book down without help," the man stated. He was looking straight at John as he spoke – his piercingly bright blue eyes seemed like they were looking straight into him. It made John want to squirm and duck his head, but he held the man's gaze.

"What are you talking about?"

"You're feeling resentful because you don't like admitting defeat," the man continued. "Because you feel like the fact that you were unable to do something as simple as reach a book reflects poorly on you in some way." He leaned his elbows on the table, steepled his hands beneath his chin, and narrowed his eyes, and now John _really_ felt like he was under scrutiny.

"Are you psychoanalysing me?"

The man didn't respond to that, instead continuing with his apparent psychoanalysis. "You've grown up believing you have something to prove. Perhaps that was your motivation for studying medicine, too – you want to become a doctor, because it will somehow prove that you are capable."

"No, I want to be a doctor because I want to help people, thank you very much, Freud."

"That too, yes, but I imagine proving yourself is a part of it. You only have one sibling, so I doubt it stems from being the youngest child and needing to measure up to your elder siblings. Could reflect parental treatment, but with your father drinking, I'd say you weren't so determined to prove yourself to him as you were to make sure he didn't kill himself."

"Oh, yeah, daddy didn't love me enough so now I don't like it when people grab books off shelves for me," John said, his voice dripping with sarcasm, and a hint of annoyance, and a hint of discomfort, because this man – this man, whose name John did not even know – was just about reading him like an open book. "Do you hear yourself?"

"You're getting defensive because I'm on the right track, aren't you?" the man said. "I can't say for certain what it was, precisely, that made you feel like you have something to prove to yourself – that delves too far into the realms of psychoanalysis, I'd rather stick to deduction – but that's why you're frustrated with me. Because something, be it relationships with your parents or with your sister or with your friends, has made you feel like you need to be entirely self-sufficient." He leaned a little further forward on the desk. "Oh, no, it's not that you feel like you need to _prove_ that you are self-sufficient. It's that you _are_ self-sufficient, and it's all that you're used to. You've grown up caring for yourself and your sister, because your father was never in the right state of mind to do that, and it makes you feel like you have to behave in the same way in every other aspect of your life. Explains how you ended up captain of the rugby team."

For a moment, John could do nothing but gape. When he finally managed to find words, all he could say was, "Do we have classes together or something?"

"Technically, I think we're both taking chemistry, though I never bother going to class if I can help it," the man replied.

"So you watch rugby games, then?"

The man shook his head. "No, I find the sport dreadfully boring. But, it's clear from your build that you play, and I have overheard people mentioning that the captain is a medical student. Bit of a leap, though not a complete shot in the dark, and your reaction tells me I'm right."

"You can tell I play rugby from my build?"

"Hardly my most impressive deduction."

"It's still kind of impressive," John said, and the man looked surprised by that comment.

"Oh," he said, and suddenly, he looked a lot less confident, seeming almost shyer. It was such a stark contrast, compared to the intensity with which he'd been staring at John before, and the way he had been spilling 'deductions' (as he called them) with such certainty that it was almost as though he could read John's mind.

The man's gaze returned to the book in front of him, perhaps not sure how to respond to John's compliment, and John himself returned his own attention to his laptop. He typed silently for a few minutes before speaking again, without looking up from his screen. "You're not wrong," he said quietly. "About any of it."

"I rarely am," the man said. "Though most people don't usually respond so well."

"Doesn't surprise me. It's a bit weird, being psychoanalysed."

"Deduced," the man corrected quickly.

"Deduced," John repeated. "If you say so. Either way, most people would find it a bit disconcerting."

"Most people get up and leave. Generally after telling me to piss off."

John looked up at him over his laptop lid, and he tilted his head to the side. "Is that why you said all that? In hopes that I'd vacate your desk?"

The man's lips quirked upwards into something resembling a smile. "Partially," he said. "Mostly because I don't tend to have a censor at the best of times."

"Well, that's obvious," John said, and he smiled a bit before looking back at his laptop. "Sorry, though. For being defensive or whatever."

"Don't apologise," the man said shortly. "I didn't make those deductions to call you out on poor behaviour or anything of the sort. I'm hardly offended."

"Of course," John said. "But, sorry, anyway."

The man shrugged his shoulders, though he was still smiling faintly. "You're forgiven," he said, and then he returned his attention to the book in front of him, and John returned his gaze to his laptop.

They fell into silence at that point, John more focussed on his assignment and the man across from him probably more focussed on whatever he was doing as well. John glanced at him a couple of times in between typing sentences and looking at the book beside him, but, at least that John saw, the other man never looked up. That was probably better. John really did need to get this assignment done, and if the man started talking to him again, he might not have been able to stop himself from asking questions, about how the man could tell that much about John, and what else he could tell about John – and if they got into that conversation, John's assignment would never get done.

It was about forty-five minutes later when John finished with the book he had been using. He hadn't finished the entire assignment – there was still some more research to do, and the rest of it to write – but he would work better at home. He usually did – he could sit back and have his tea and plug his laptop into charge without having to fight someone for a desk that was within reach of a power plug. He put his laptop back in his bag, tucked his book under his arm so he could drop it off in the returns chute, and then got to his feet. "Hey," he said before leaving, and the man looked up at him. "Thank you. For getting the book down for me."

The man's lips pulled upwards once again. "I thought you were annoyed that I'd helped you."

"I was," John said. "But I was also being a bit of a git, and I apologised. So, thank you."

"You're welcome."

John turned to leave, took a step, and then turned back. "I'm John, by the way," he said. When the man looked at him blankly, he added, "In case you were wondering."

The man was quiet for a moment, and John worried that he might say something like 'No, I wasn't wondering', but after a pause, he said, "Sherlock," and John smiled.

"Nice to meet you, Sherlock," he said. "Good luck with whatever you're working on."

Sherlock's lips pulled up into a half-smile. "Good luck reaching books off high shelves," he said, and John glared, although there was no real heat behind it this time.

"Git," he said. Sherlock shrugged.

"Now we're even."

John pursed his lips for a moment, and then smiled. "Fair enough," he said. "I'll see you around, maybe."

He slung his bag over his shoulder, and then moved to walk away. He turned back just before he rounded one of the shelves, and this time, he did catch Sherlock's gaze on him. Just for a moment, before Sherlock returned his attention to his book, and John stepped around the corner.


	6. Five Times Sherlock Requested John

**Author's Note:** This one got away from me a bit. I did not plan on making it quite so long. Hopefully this makes up for the delay!

As always, a million thanks to the world's best beta, Becca (Ao3's LlamaWithAPen).

* * *

Prompt from Tumblr user bisexualclarke's "here have some AUs as if there aren't enough on your dash already" post: _"you're the only delivery person who gets to my house in any semblance of the word fast which is why i keep requesting you but you don't believe me and tease me constantly about it" au._

 **Five Times Sherlock Requested John for Convenience...**

 _One_.

Fast food, by its very definition, should be fast. You would think that even an idiot could work that much out. Sherlock isn't ordering fast food because he's hoping for something of a high standard – if he wanted good food, he would be going to an actual restaurant. No, Sherlock is ordering fast food, because he wants food, fast. Is that really too much to ask?

Sherlock doesn't eat when he's working. Preparing and eating food is time-consuming, and digesting slows him down. It's preferable to abstain from food for the duration of the case, so that Sherlock can focus all of his body's energy on the investigation. It's like a fight-or-flight response: when under threat, the body slows down the digestive system, but speeds up the heart rate and respiration, pumping more blood around the body and more blood to the brain so that it can move and think faster. Sherlock needs his brain to work fast when he's on a case, which means he needs his digestive system to work slowly, which means he doesn't have the time to supply it with food for it to digest. All of that can wait until after the case.

However, quite inconveniently, Sherlock is human, and humans have needs. Although he regards his body as nothing more than transport for his mind, it does require things like food, and sleep, in order to keep it moving and keep it capable of transporting his mind about. Sherlock chooses not to eat during a case because he needs to be able to focus, but it rather defeats the purpose if he starves himself to the point where he cannot think straight. Sherlock has trained his body to survive off little to no food for days on end, but eventually, he needs to give in.

What this means is that, when Sherlock finishes a case and finally allows himself to stop, his body tends to make its hunger known loudly and clearly, and the several days that he has gone without food catch up to him. When this happens, then Sherlock wants food, and Sherlock wants food immediately. He doesn't want to waste time cooking, or travelling somewhere to get food. The best option at times like these is to find whatever he can in either his own fridge or Mrs Hudson's, but if there is nothing edible around the flat, then fast food is his next best bet. It's the easiest way to get enough food into his body to stop his stomach from growling and aching so that he can focus on more important things once more.

This, of course, relies on one key factor: the food Sherlock orders needs to be fast.

Pizza is Sherlock's first choice. On average, pizza is delivered faster than other takeaway services, like Chinese or Thai. It's simple to make, and thus takes less time to prepare, and the service itself is focussed on delivery. And yet, Sherlock has discovered from experience that, although pizza deliveries are faster on average, they still tend to take far longer than they should.

Sherlock has done the maths. He knows the distance from the pizza place to his flat. He has factored in traffic on the road, and the time it would take for his order to reach the front of the queue. He has gone through delivery person after delivery person, searching for someone who is capable of delivering as quickly as possible, and, as of yet, Sherlock has not found someone who he would classify as competent.

Some people are more competent than others, of course. One particular experience left Sherlock waiting for so long that he had been convinced his online order had gotten lost in cyberspace. But, then Sherlock's delivery had finally turned up, with not as much as an apology for the delivery man's unacceptable tardiness. Sherlock had taken note of the name on the man's name tag and had proceeded to put the words "NOT ANDERSON" in the comment section whenever he ordered online from then on, to save a repeat experience.

Sherlock would love to be able to replace that comment with another name – not a name of a person that he _doesn't_ want to deliver his food, but of someone who he _does_ want. But, as of yet, Sherlock has not come across anyone who is good enough to make him want to continuously request them.

The delivery website tells him that the delivery person for tonight is "John". Sherlock does not believe he's had "John" as a delivery person before, but it's distinctly possible that he has, and has simply not bothered to commit him to memory. _John_ is a remarkably ordinary name. Perhaps John is also a remarkably ordinary person, who Sherlock did not bother to save in his Mind Palace.

If John is anything like the mediocre delivery people that Sherlock has had experience with so far, then, according to Sherlock's watch, it will be at least another seven minutes before –

The doorbell rings.

It's the earliest delivery that Sherlock has ever had. It's so unexpectedly on-time that it takes Sherlock a minute to confirm that he really had heard that sound.

He thinks to himself that it cannot possibly be his order, as he makes his way downstairs. Maybe it's a client, or a friend of his landlady, or Detective Inspector Lestrade, coming to ask for his help on a case. It's late – later than he would expect for any of those options – but it's not late enough to rule them out as possibilities. Given Sherlock's experience with the pizza place, those possibilities seem more possible than the idea that Sherlock's pizza could actually be _on time_.

He reaches the door and opens it, still half-expecting to find someone other than the delivery person behind it.

To his surprise, the person behind it is, in fact, in uniform, standing on the doorstep with a box of food in one hand.

The delivery person has a cane in his other hand, though Sherlock notes that he puts surprisingly little weight on it. Sherlock feels like, if he kicked the cane out from underneath the man, the man would still manage to stay standing. It's not something you would expect from anyone who has an injury that requires the use of a cane. Perhaps it's an injury that has almost healed, but if that were the case, the man would be more likely to have crutches. So, perhaps it's not a physical injury. Perhaps it's the kind of injury that you forget about when your mind is on something else, because, in a way, it's all in your head.

This gets processed only in a small corner of Sherlock's mind. The rest of his mind is too busy filing away John's name and face in his Mind Palace, because John seems to be a delivery person who recognises that fast food is supposed to be fast.

It's a miracle.

These deductions occur within an interval of three seconds, but although three seconds is not a long period of time, it is long enough for the forced I'm-paid-to-look-happy smile on the man's face to be replaced with something of confusion and uncertainty. Three seconds without a verbal response from Sherlock is enough to clearly have the man wondering if he had made it to the right house.

"Um," the man starts, but Sherlock cuts him off.

"You," he says, "are not incompetent."

The man blinks in surprise. "Thank you?"

Sherlock fishes his wallet out of his pocket, still talking as he does. "You could have been faster, if you knew the right shortcuts, but comparative to your idiotic colleagues, you're easily the best I've come across so far."

He talks as though he's talking to himself more than to John, but John seems to find it more amusing than anything else. A smile dances at the corners of his lips.

"I'll make sure not to tell my colleagues that you spoke so badly of them," he says, and Sherlock rolls his eyes.

"They know they're incompetent, surely. It will hardly come as a surprise to know that I had mentioned as much. Thank goodness you're not incompetent; I was beginning to doubt the hiring ability of your managers."

"I won't tell _them_ you said that," John says, and then he nods towards the box of food. "Enjoy your dinner," he finishes, and then he turns slowly and walks back towards the car. There's an obvious limp, now that he's moving, and he starts to put more weight on the cane again.

Sherlock watches him for a moment, before stepping inside and closing the door behind him, taking the box of food into the flat so he can give his body what it wants.

 _Two_.

The next time Sherlock craves fast food is a few weeks later. Cases and experiments keep his attention occupied for a while, and then he steals food from Mrs Hudson's refrigerator for a few days longer. But, as grocery day approaches, the food in Mrs Hudson's kitchen becomes sparser, and when he ends up clearing out his own fridge to make room for a human hand, there isn't anything left in the flat to satisfy his cravings. So, he orders fast food, and he makes sure to put in the comment section that he specifically requests John.

He's pleased to discover that John's timely arrival previously was not a fluke. Once again, he is significantly faster than the average idiot. The doorbell rings, and Sherlock rushes downstairs to retrieve the food before his stomach starts to growl again. When he opens the door, he finds that there is an odd, teasing sort of smile on John's face.

"Did I make a good impression on you last time?" John asks, as he exchanges the box of food for the money in Sherlock's hand.

"As I said, you aren't incompetent," Sherlock replies dismissively. "I'd rather not have to wait any longer than necessary to get what I ordered, and you seem to be the only person capable of delivering anything on time."

"Oh, right, of course," says John, in a tone of voice that says he doesn't quite believe Sherlock (which is ridiculous, because Sherlock is telling the truth).

Sherlock opens his mouth to ask John what on earth he believes would be Sherlock's motivation for requesting a particular delivery person aside from convenience, but then something else catches his attention. Behind John, he can see the delivery car parked on the verge – disgusting bright colours designed to catch people's attention, as if the annoying advertisement jingles haven't permanently saved the phone number in everyone's head – and he can see something sticking to the inside of the windscreen. He peers around John to get a better look.

"Is that a GPS?" he asks.

John glances over his shoulder, and then nods. "Oh, yeah," he says, and Sherlock stares.

"If you have a GPS, then why does it take your colleagues so long to get here?" he says. At least if they hadn't had a GPS, they could blame their tardiness on getting lost – which is not an acceptable excuse, but at least it provides some sort of explanation. But they do have a GPS, which means that getting lost isn't possible, so why on earth is there such a huge difference between the time it takes for John to deliver food compared to the time it takes for someone like Anderson –

"Oh, I don't follow the GPS," John says, halting Sherlock's train of thought. "It doesn't take traffic into consideration. I live around here, so I know what the streets are like at this time of day. It's faster to go my way."

"Oh," Sherlock says, raising his eyebrows and thinking to himself that John might be smarter than he looks.

 _(Not) Three_.

The would-be third time that Sherlock sees John is a week and a half later, when Sherlock finishes another case in record time and decides that fast food is in order. Unfortunately, it does not quite go as planned.

He realises that something is wrong as soon as it surpasses the time that it took John to deliver the food the last two times. He gives John a bit of leeway, because, unfortunately, traffic is uncontrollable, but after a few extra minutes it becomes clear to him that traffic is not the issue. He checks the online order tracker, in case the issue is in the kitchen and not on the road, but the order tracker definitely says that food is on its way.

Briefly, Sherlock wonders if something could have happened, if maybe John has been in some sort of trouble, or in an accident, and that's why he's late. The thought is coupled with an uncomfortable sensation in the pit of his stomach, like he's eaten something off, and he's not quite sure what could have caused that. He dismisses it as his body's way of telling him that he needs to have something to eat.

He waits at the window, overlooking the street. Living on the second floor might not grant him the most aesthetically pleasing view, but it does give him a clear view of the cars below. He leans against the glass, keeping an eye out for one particular car of interest.

It's about ten minutes later when the car finally pulls up on the side of the road, and Sherlock rushes downstairs to meet John and demand to know what took him so long.

The answer to Sherlock's question becomes apparent even before he's had the chance to ask it aloud. The person behind the door is taller, wider, and isn't standing with a cane.

"You're not John," he states.

The man at the door shakes his head. "No, I'm not."

Well, now they've got the obvious out of the way.

"I requested John," Sherlock continues. "Why are you here?"

"Because," says the man, "John's not working today, and I think he'd be a bit annoyed if we called him in just because someone requested him."

Sherlock blinks. He had not even considered the possibility that John might not be available whenever Sherlock wants food. Really, it should have been something that he predicted. Today is a Saturday; the past two times when Sherlock has ordered fast food have been weekdays. No wonder John is not here; most people who work on weekdays do not work on weekends.

"Oh," Sherlock says, and then he closes the door.

The man behind it yells, "Hey! You still need to pay me for this."

(He repeats this a couple of times before Sherlock gives in, because there's no way he'll get any peace and quiet if he doesn't.)

 _Three_.

The actual third time Sherlock next sees John is the following Monday – a day on which Sherlock has ordered food previously, and thus a day that Sherlock can be reasonably certain that John will be working.

He's not that hungry, though the thought of food isn't completely aversive. More importantly, however, he feels he needs to work out when John will, and when he will not, be available, to prevent a repeat of last time. He orders something small, pays with card, and he makes sure to specifically request John, hoping that the man in question will actually be on shift this time.

He's in luck. His delivery arrives quickly, and John is standing behind the door when he opens it. The expression on John's face is teasing, and friendly, which is an expression that Sherlock isn't used to seeing directed towards him.

"So," John says. "I'm told you requested me on the weekend and weren't very happy when someone else turned up at your house."

Sherlock makes a dismissive hand gesture. "Had your replacement even come close to being as fast as you, it wouldn't have been a problem. What days do you work?"

"You're not planning on stalking me, are you?" John asks, though his tone portrays no real fear or doubt. Still, Sherlock shakes his head.

"Don't be idiotic. What days?"

"Monday to Thursday, usually. Just in the afternoons and evenings, mind."

Sherlock looks him over, taking in his haircut and his stance (military), his fading tan (abroad, but has been in London for a while), his limp (psychosomatic injury – wounded in action – invalided home). John is working only on evenings, because he needs the money, because an army pension would not be enough. He's working in a mundane job that clearly doesn't require any of the numerous skills that he would have acquired serving in the army, so he must be desperate.

However, John mentioned living nearby previously, and a few evenings a week, plus an army pension, would still not cover the cost of rent in central London.

This, therefore, can't be his only job.

"Where else do you work?" he asks, and John blinks.

"Pardon?"

"This isn't your only job. You couldn't possibly afford London with nothing but a few hours of poorly-paid part-time work, even if you do have an army pension on top of that."

"How did you know that?"

Sherlock gestures to John's cane, and then more generally to all of John, who just raises his eyebrows.

"Is it that obvious?" John asks.

"When you know what to look for, yes. Now, your other job?"

The corners of John's lips pull up into a smile. "Believe it or not, I'm a doctor."

Sherlock frowns. "Shouldn't you have a high enough pay from that?"

"Not when you're only doing locum work," John replies, his smile turning a little wry. "I'm just filling in for one of the other doctors, from time to time. I don't get enough shifts to live off just yet."

Sherlock takes note of the last word of the sentence. _Yet_. It makes sense. This gives John the option to gradually reintroduce himself into civilian life, working his way up from a few shifts a week to full-time work. It means that, eventually, John will have enough work at a clinic for him to pay for living in London, and it will be unnecessary for him to do anything extra on the side.

The realisation leads to a sinking sensation in Sherlock's stomach. It must be disappointment, knowing that the only competent human being who can deliver food won't be available to deliver food for much longer.

John snaps him out of his head, holding up the box of food. "I have to be getting back," he says.

"Right," Sherlock says, and he reaches into his back pocket to pull out his wallet. John just smiles in amusement and shakes his head.

"Bit distracted, are we?" he asks. "You paid online, remember?"

Did he? He must have. It's not like Sherlock to make mistakes like that. His mind isn't all here at the moment, which is very unlike him. Obviously he needs the food more than he was letting himself admit.

"Right, of course," he says, and he takes the box of food from John's hands.

"Ta," John says, and then he turns and heads back down to the car.

 _Four_.

The next time Sherlock decides he wants fast food, he's not at home. He had been assisting Lestrade with a case, which led the both of them to the morgue to inspect the body. Sherlock only needed a moment to look over the corpse before he'd formulated a theory, and a text from one of his homeless network members confirmed it. He sent Lestrade off to arrest the perpetrator, and Lestrade has just sent him a text to say that the man is now in custody. The case is over, now, and Sherlock can once again return his focus to other things, such as experiments.

Sherlock had an experiment in mind that involved the equipment that he had access to in the morgue. However, he could not perform the experiment until he had access to certain body parts, and he would not have access to these body parts until Molly Hooper started her shift. She was due to start within an hour, so there was no point in going home and coming back. The time that it would take for him to travel from the hospital to Baker Street and back again would be a waste of time. All the same, it means that Sherlock has a lull, now, until Molly's arrival. So, he might as well satisfy his body's needs while he has a moment, and then they can be pushed to the back of his mind.

He makes use of one of the empty laboratories. He's not _technically_ supposed to be here, but he knows he can get away with it. When you walk with enough confidence, people assume you know where you are going and what you are doing. Most of them will not even question him. Some of the staff might notice, if they walk past, that he's not supposed to be in the room, but most, if not all, will choose not to call him out on it, in fear of embarrassing themselves if he is, indeed, in the right place.

Besides, it's unlikely that anyone will come up to this room at this time of day. It's one of the teaching rooms, and it's now past teaching hours. Mike Stamford, one of the teachers, might come up, but Mike knows Sherlock, and Mike has walked in on Sherlock doing far more dangerous things than eating food in a lab.

He orders something small, once again specifying that he insists on John and only John delivering the food, and he specifies which lab he's in so that John knows to bring the food into the hospital and not just into the waiting room.

Taking into consideration the extra distance that John would have needed to travel to reach the hospital, it's clear that John's speed is not limited to Baker Street. He arrives quickly, despite the fact that he had to make it not only to the correct building, but also to the correct room. The speed at which he arrives implies a certain level of familiarity with the layout of the hospital. Perhaps this was where he studied to become a doctor.

When John pushes open the lab door, a grin crosses his face. "Thought it might have been you," he says. "I thought it was weird that I was requested for a delivery to somewhere other than Baker Street."

"I'm here nearly as frequently as I am at home," Sherlock says. "Don't be surprised if this is not the last time you deliver to St Bart's."

John steps over to the bench where Sherlock has set up a work space (by which he means he's opened up a laptop, and there's a microscope beside him, ready to be used as soon as Molly arrives). "Are you even allowed to eat in here?" John asks.

Sherlock shrugs his shoulders dismissively. "Probably not," he says, "but I'll have finished before anyone comes up to stop me."

John purses his lips, and Sherlock looks over him, continuing, "You're not about to refuse me my order, are you? It's a teaching lab, not a lab where there is anything of vital importance that could easily be contaminated. And it's not as though I'm going to make a mess."

John shrugs. "It's not my place to tell you off. I'm a delivery guy, not your mother."

"Good," Sherlock says shortly, ignoring any condescending tone in John's voice that says he disapproves nonetheless. "Now. Food." He shifts to reach into his back pocket, pulling out his wallet. At the same time, he hears the door open.

"You know," says a voice that Sherlock immediately recognises as belonging to Mike Stamford, "we have a cafeteria."

"Yes, and the food in the cafeteria should hardly be given the label of 'food', given that it's barely edible at the best of times," Sherlock says. It becomes quite clear halfway through the sentence, however, that Mike has stopped listening. John turns his head to look over at the newcomer, and Mike all but cuts Sherlock off.

"John? John Watson?"

John is quiet for a beat, perhaps taking a moment longer to recognise the person standing before him. Mike does not seem to mind. He smiles, and says, "Mike Stamford. We were at Bart's together."

The additional information is enough for John to make the link. "Mike, sorry, of course," he says, and he puts the box of food down on the table so that he can clasp the man's hand.

"You're a delivery man, now?" Mike says once John has taken his hand away. "Last I heard you were abroad somewhere getting shot at."

John gestures to his cane. "I got shot."

Sherlock sees an apologetic expression come across Mike's face before he continues, "Surely that doesn't mean you're no longer fit to be a doctor, though."

John shakes his head. "I'm not. Just still looking for work. This," – he gestures to the box of food – "is just so I can pay the rent."

"London, huh?" Mike says, with a fond sort of smile on his face. "Whereabouts are you living now?"

John makes a dismissive hand gesture. "Nowhere permanent, yet. Still looking for somewhere within my price range. With the way things are going at the moment, I don't know how much longer I'll be able to stay here."

"Couldn't Harry help?" Mike asks, and John snorts.

"Yeah, right."

They fall into a silence that strikes Sherlock as a bit awkward, though he's never been the best at reading those sorts of social cues. It's Mike who breaks it after a moment.

"So, how do you know Sherlock?"

"Sherlock?" John repeats, and then he glances over his shoulder at where Sherlock is sitting. "Oh, that's you, isn't it?" he says, and then adds, "That's odd. I could have sworn the details from the card you paid with last time said Mycroft."

Sherlock fixes his gaze on the laptop screen and says nothing, but the corners of his lips turn upwards.

John turns his attention back to Mike. "I don't know him, not really. I'm just his favourite delivery person."

"Most competent delivery person," Sherlock mutters.

"Favourite," John corrects, and Sherlock can _hear_ the smile in his voice. "How do you know him? Do you two work together?"

Mike chuckles at that. "I don't think Sherlock could work with anyone, could you, Sherlock?"

(Sherlock thinks he could easily work with someone if they weren't completely incompetent, but he keeps this to himself, instead opting to slide the box of food towards himself so that he can pick at it while John and Mike finish their conversation).

Mike continues, "No, he just comes in and uses the labs from time to time. Used to sit in on some of my classes, too, until he started upsetting some of the students by telling them they'd asked stupid questions."

"They did ask stupid questions," Sherlock says.

"In my class, there's no such thing."

"I beg to differ."

Mike ignores this, as does John, who then asks, "So, you're teaching now?"

Mike nods. "Oh, yeah. Bright young things, like we were. God, I hate them."

They both laugh at that, and Sherlock puts them on partial mute before they start becoming nostalgic about a time long past when they were 'bright young things'. Fortunately, their conversation seems to be coming to an end, as John looks over at him a few moments later and notes that Sherlock has started picking at the food wordlessly. "You do have to pay me for that," he says.

Sherlock gestures to the wallet that he had pulled from his pocket several moments earlier, which is now sitting on the bench. John hesitates for a moment, perhaps reluctant to root through someone else's wallet instead of being given cash, but after a moment he picks it up. Sherlock sees him take the correct amount before placing the wallet back on the bench.

"Ta," he says, and then he turns back to Mike. "We should catch up for coffee sometime."

Mike nods. "Absolutely," he says. "Come on, I'll walk you out."

Sherlock, at this point, puts them on mute, and he fixes his attention on the laptop and the food as they walk out of the room and let the door swing shut behind them.

 _Five_.

Sherlock does not order fast food for well over a month. It's not as though he does not eat for a month, of course, but he has been able to find food in the fridge, or food from Mrs Hudson, or food from a very grateful Italian restaurant owner whose name Sherlock helped to clear (a bit), who insists on thanking Sherlock with free food. However, eventually, Sherlock ends up in the same position that he's been in before, with a case that occupies his attention for several days, leading to a desire to get food into his body as quickly as possible as soon as it's over.

He orders pizza, and then goes to get a drink from the fridge, but the tray in the bottom catches his eye. The case had dragged him away from the experiments that he had been working on beforehand – specifically, away from an experiment that involved the thumbs that were currently sitting on a tray in the fridge. He had completely forgotten about them, which is unlike him. He hopes this does not mean his results are ruined.

He pulls the tray out of the fridge, placing it carefully on the dining room table, and then he pulls on a pair of plastic gloves. He crouches to examine the tray at eye level, and then picks up each thumb one by one, to assess them for damage. When there is a knock at the door downstairs, he's far too occupied to go down and answer it, and Mrs Hudson does that for him after a few minutes of incessant knocking. He hears her voice, followed by John's, presumably asking where Sherlock is or asking if Mrs Hudson is paying for the food.

Sherlock doesn't think twice before yelling, "Come up here."

It does not cross his mind that the sight – the sight of Sherlock carefully examining a collection of human thumbs – is unusual and concerning for anyone who does not know him. He hears John's footsteps (uneven, limping, every second step coupled with a click of his cane) as he makes his way up the stairs, and then he comes to a stop, very suddenly. Sherlock can feel John's eyes on him before he even looks up to confirm that John is, indeed, staring.

Sherlock is not sure what the predicted reaction to this should be. Maybe John will scream. Sherlock hopes John won't scream, so he doesn't startle Mrs Hudson.

John doesn't scream.

Instead, John says, "I really hope they're not for pizza toppings."

Sherlock's lips quirk upwards into a smile.

"They're an experiment," he explains, carefully placing each thumb on the tray so that none are touching.

There's an expression on John's face that looks like it might be a cross between discomfort and fascination. The latter wins out – John takes a step closer, rather than doing what might be the more rational thing and escaping from the flat as fast as is humanly possible.

"What kind of experiment can you do with human thumbs?" he asks.

Sherlock looks up at him, and raises his eyebrows. "Can't you come up with any?" he asks. "I can think of at least five, off the top of my head." A beat, and then he corrects, "Eight, at least. No, ten." He glances down at the tray, and continues, "This one involves fingerprint analysis. Fingerprints are remarkably durable even after death. I'm looking into whether or not there is a way to change them."

"Why?"

"Because it's of interest whether or not there are ways to prevent a corpse from being identified after death, aside from the obvious removing of the fingers and teeth."

John frowns, and Sherlock sees him take a half-step back. "Why?"

"Not so that _I_ can make bodies unidentifiable, don't be stupid. So that I can investigate it. I highly doubt I'm the only person in the world who has conducted this sort of experiment; there is every possibility that someone else is out there doing it for far more sinister reasons."

"I don't know how many people in the world would have access to human thumbs."

Sherlock's lips quirk. "You'd be surprised."

"Where did you get those, anyway?"

"The morgue. Molly Hooper, the pathologist, gives me access to bodies when possible."

"Is this really the best way of making use of people who have donated their bodies to science?"

"This could be of vital importance to future investigations. So, yes, it is."

"If you say so. So, you're a detective, then?"

"Consulting detective."

"Consulting detective," John corrects, "who experiments with thumbs."

"Among other things, yes."

John looks more amused than anything else – amused and fascinated, which is significantly better than seeing him terrified. Sherlock is surprised to find he reacted so well. It's hardly the most gruesome thing John could have ever seen, having been a soldier, but most people tend to assume Sherlock is a psychopath. It's refreshing that John does not.

John glances down at the watch on his wrist. "As much as I'd love to hang around and watch you experiment, my boss won't be happy if I take too long on one delivery, and I really would like to leave on a good note."

Sherlock's brain comes to a sudden halt, and he plays that last line over in his head. "Leave?" he repeats.

"Oh, yeah, I'm leaving," John says. "The surgery I work at has finally offered me full time work, which is more than enough for the rent. I don't need to give up my evenings anymore."

Sherlock has known this would happen eventually, from the moment he discovered that John is a qualified doctor. This should come as absolutely no surprise to him. And yet, it brings with it a sinking feeling of disappointment. He doesn't want John to leave.

The expression must show on his face, because after a second, John is grinning at him, teasingly. "Why?" he asks. "Disappointed that I won't be your delivery guy anymore?"

"You're the only competent delivery person," Sherlock says (and John rolls his eyes at the word 'competent', as though he still doesn't believe that explains anything). "If you leave, I'll be forced to wait unnecessary amounts of time for food to be delivered."

"Oh, come on, it's not like they take that much longer than me. Admit it, you're just lonely and I'm your favourite person."

"Don't be idiotic."

"Plus, I'm sure I'm the only person who can see you hunched over a collection of human thumbs and not assume you're a murderer."

"You did assume I was a murderer."

"The thought crossed my mind briefly. You can hardly blame me for that. Still, I didn't immediately yell for help or call the police."

"Perhaps that just means you're an idiot. What do they say about bravery and stupidity?"

"I'd have been an idiot if you had, in fact, turned out to be a murderer. However, I was right about you. Obviously, that means I'm not that daft."

"That's yet to be determined." Sherlock picks up the tray and returns it to the fridge. "My wallet's on the sofa," he says over his shoulder. "Take however much I owe you."

"You're going to let me root through your wallet with your back turned?" John says. "Maybe you're the idiot."

"I'm reasonably certain a doctor – an army doctor, no less, with a strong moral compass – doesn't need to steal the small amount of cash I keep on me."

"Fair enough," John says, and Sherlock sees movement out of the corner of his eye as John goes over to the wallet on the sofa. Maybe it was a bad idea to trust John, because Sherlock hardly knows him, but, at least in Sherlock's eyes, he knows enough.

"When's your last shift?" Sherlock asks, once John had put the wallet back down again.

"Um, the twenty-forth," John replies. "Why, are you going to stop ordering pizza after I leave? You'll just be _that_ devastated that you won't have your favourite deliveryman anymore, so you're just going to boycott the place altogether?"

"I think your ego is getting far too big."

John grins. "No, I don't think so." He nods towards the box of pizza that he has placed on the coffee table, and he says, "Enjoy your dinner." Then he turns and he heads down the stairs. Sherlock hears each footstep, and the click of his cane, until he reaches the door.

 **And the One Time he Requested John for Sentiment...**

On the twenty-fourth of March, Sherlock is not hungry.

He is not on a case, so there's no reason for him to refuse food, but none of the cases over the past several days have been enough to occupy his attention for too long. So, he's not been in a position where he's needed to starve himself for a while, and because of this, he has not needed to make up for several days without food. Occasionally, he's been snacking on Mrs Hudson's cakes, but beyond that, he has not really been hungry.

However, today is the last day of John's job at the delivery place.

This should hardly be relevant to anything Sherlock is doing. It is convenient, that he knows that it's John's last day, because this way he knows that, after today, he should be prepared to wait longer whenever he orders food. However, this should be the only reason why this knowledge matters to him. There is no reason for him to be aware of it being John's last day if he does not want to order anything to eat.

And yet, Sherlock cannot get the thought out of his head, nor can he can get rid of the unusual, sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach.

For all intents and purposes, John is a stranger. A convenient stranger, yes, as far as deliverymen go, but he is nothing more than that. There is absolutely no reason why Sherlock should be hyperaware of the fact that today is John's last day, and there is absolutely no reason why it should concern him that after this, John will not be delivering his food anymore. It's more than that, too, because Sherlock is aware that he might never see John again. And there is no reason why that should bother him, but it does.

Maybe he's received some sort of brain injury. That might explain everything.

He tries to distract himself. He has other things to do. He has experiments to work on, and though he does not currently have any cases, the previous cases that he has worked on need to be filed in his Mind Palace. This works for a while, in keeping his mind occupied, but whenever he enters his Mind Palace, he finds John is sitting there. John isn't jumping about or shouting or trying to distract Sherlock; he's just sitting there like he belongs there. All the same, it stands out to Sherlock, who is so used to his Mind Palace being empty, except for when he calls on suspects and witnesses. There is not usually someone just sitting there in his Mind Palace, just watching with an expression of interest, like the one on John's face when he found Sherlock experimenting on thumbs.

And no matter how hard Sherlock tries, he cannot get John to leave his head.

So, eventually, he caves.

He's not particularly hungry, so he opts for the smallest thing on the menu, which ends up being one of the dessert options (mini Dutch pancakes). He pays online, and specifies in the comments, as usual, that he wants John and only John to deliver it. It feels strange, to know that this is the last time he will be able to make such a request. Now, he's going to have to find someone else. Given his previous experiences, he does not believe anyone could be as fast as John.

John arrives on time, although it feels like Sherlock waited so much longer than usual. The time on his phone when the doorbell rings, however, tells him that John has taken no more or less time than he usually does. Clearly, Sherlock's mental clock is malfunctioning. He stands to go downstairs and let John in, but then he hesitates. When Sherlock has greeted John at the door in the past, John has promptly left afterwards. It has only been the past couple of times, when John has come inside, when he has lingered for long enough for Sherlock to converse with him, that Sherlock has been able to learn more about him. It was the last time when John had delivered food that Sherlock really started to get a picture of the sort of person John was, through the unusual way that John reacted to the experiment, which perhaps had played a major part in why Sherlock has taken to him.

So, Sherlock ignores the doorbell, and the knock that follows, knowing that Mrs Hudson will go and answer it for him and then John will come inside.

Sherlock does not want to make it seem like he's just standing there and waiting, however. That seems pathetic, and Sherlock still has a certain impression that he wants to give off (that is, the impression of someone who has not foolishly developed a sentimental attachment to a deliveryman). So, he moves quickly, setting up his laptop at the dining room table so that, by the time Mrs Hudson lets John in, and he makes his way upstairs, Sherlock looks like he's working hard.

The expression on John's face when he looks up almost makes it seem like he knows Sherlock isn't _really_ working hard, but there is no way he could have known that, right?

"I was wondering if I'd hear from you," John says, moving into the room. Sherlock's laptop is set up in such a way that John cannot see the screen, so he cannot see that it is, in fact, blank. Sherlock taps a few keys so it looks like he's finishing up what he was doing, and then he closes his laptop lid, as though he has just saved his work.

"Were you?" he asks, keeping his tone casual and nonchalant.

"You knew what day I finished. I figured you'd be making one more order before I left, and I have to say, I'd have been disappointed if you hadn't."

"No, you wouldn't have," Sherlock replies dismissively. "Why would you?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

Sherlock shrugs. "I'm sure your work keeps you occupied enough. I doubt you'd have noticed if I hadn't ordered anything."

"Don't be so sure." John glances at the bag of food in his hand, and adds, "I get the feeling that you ordered this is not because you're hungry but because you know I'm leaving."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Mm, I'm not," John replies, in the teasing tone that Sherlock has become so used to hearing from him. "You're going to miss me. Admit it."

"I've requested you a small handful of times, and your ego is getting far too large."

"You requested me on my last day despite the fact that you don't actually want food."

"I never said that."

"You don't need to."

Sherlock chooses not to grace that with a response, beyond glaring at John. John just grins back at him.

John walks further into the room, over to the dining room table, and he puts the bag in front of Sherlock. He doesn't pull out a chair, or even ask to sit, despite the fact that he's holding his cane. His limp is bad when he walks, but now that he's standing still, it's hardly noticeable. How does John's mind tell him he's in such pain, when it's quite clear that he can stand perfectly well?

"I mean it, by the way," John says, drawing Sherlock's attention away from John's leg to his face.

"Mean what?"

"I would have been disappointed if you hadn't ordered anything before my last shift."

Sherlock frowns. "Why?"

John's response is to shrug his shoulders. "You're my favourite customer," he says simply, casually.

Sherlock blinks, and it takes him a minute to formulate a response to that. When he does speak, he doesn't make a clever comment, but can only ask again, "Why?"

"Why not?" John replies. "You're interesting. You're... kind of weird, to be honest, but you're interesting. And you don't look at me with a pitying expression because I have this." He tips his head to the side to gesture to his cane.

"It's hardly a reason to pity you," Sherlock replies dismissively. "Clearly it doesn't impact your ability to work. That, and it's psychosomatic, but it would hardly be a reason to pity you if it were physical."

"Psychosomatic?" John repeats. "You sound like my therapist."

"No surprises there. While most people are idiots, I imagine your therapist has a point on this matter."

John is quiet for a moment, before he shakes his head, apparently deciding that now is not the time or the place for a conversation like this. "Moving on," he says. "What happened to your experiment?"

"Which one?"

"The one you were doing the last time I was here. With the thumbs."

"You're that curious?"

John shrugs, and he pulls out the seat across from Sherlock, sitting down. Sherlock isn't sure if that's because attention has been called to his limp, or because John wants to make it clear that he is in no rush to leave. Maybe it's both. "I've been thinking about it since I last saw you," John says. "It's kind of interesting. Really weird, but interesting."

"Most people find my experiments just weird."

"Well, maybe I'm not most people. Come on, what did you find?"

"Why, do you have fingerprints that need removing?"

John rolls his eyes, and when he says nothing, Sherlock decides to answer his question. After all, it's not often that he has someone who he can talk to about this sort of thing.

"Sandpaper works, though it would be time consuming," he begins. "Probably not ideal for a murderer who wants to get away. It should also work for removing one's own fingerprints, technically speaking, but it would be painful, and fingerprints are remarkably durable, so they would eventually return to the same shape. Burning is another option, but, again, is time consuming. The best option would be to remove the fingers, which is messy, but it's the quickest and most effective way to prevent a body from being fingerprinted. Except, of course, then you would have to hide the fingers, so that might cause even more problems. It's certainly done, though; there have been cases where bodies have turned up sans fingers, and teeth."

"Why would anyone try to make a body unidentifiable, anyway?" John asks. "I mean, I can understand why someone might want to remove their own fingerprints – although you'd have to be very dedicated to get rid of them with sandpaper – but does it matter if dead bodies are identifiable? If you've killed someone, isn't it more important that the murder doesn't get tied to you, not that they don't find out who the body is?"

"I'm sure you could come up with a scenario, if you tried hard enough. Maybe you can't dispose of the body, but you know you'll be a suspect if they are identified, for instance." Sherlock leans back on his chair, and adds, "I don't need to know the specific motivations for removing the fingers. I just need to know the ways in which it is possible, so I remain one step ahead."

"Fair enough," John says. "Do you do experiments like that a lot?"

"With thumbs? No more often than I do experiments with any other body part."

"I don't think I want to know what other body parts you have lying around your flat. No, I meant experiments for police work. I'm sure most policemen don't experiment with thumbs, or any other body part, in order to aid their investigations."

"I'm not a policeman," Sherlock points out, "nor am I like most people. I have a lot of free time in between the more interesting cases, and my brain works much faster than everyone else's. I need something to occupy my mind, and these sorts of experiments are something that allows me to do that, while being of practical use. Plus, with any luck, maybe some of the detectives at the Yard will pay enough attention to my methods to at least try to pick them up themselves, and then they might be marginally less terrible at their jobs."

"I'm sure they're not that bad," John says. "I mean, I'm sure they got their jobs because they're at least a little bit competent."

Sherlock scoffs. "I don't know about that."

John's lips quirk upwards into a faint smile. After a pause, he asks, "So, what other experiments have you done?"

Sherlock makes a dismissive hand gesture. "Too many to list. Blood splatter patterns are an obvious one."

"Isn't there information for that online? With people writing detective stories and crime novels, you'd think any of the 'obvious' experiments would have been done already and be readily available online somewhere."

"I choose not to trust other sources, if I have the option of running the experiment myself. You can't trust people to be honest and unbiased in reporting their results."

"But you can trust yourself to be unbiased?"

"Obviously."

John smiles in that disbelieving way, similar to the smile that he gets whenever Sherlock insists that he requested John purely for convenience. In light of recent events – and recent feelings that Sherlock is trying not to think about – it may be that that expression crosses John's face when he actually has a point.

Sherlock looks away for a moment, and then returns his gaze to John. "Won't your manager be unimpressed if you take too long?"

John pulls his phone out of his pocket, checking the time. "I'm good for another few minutes – I can blame it on traffic. He won't know any better. Besides, it's my last shift. It's not like he can fire me."

"Where are you working now?" Sherlock asks, and John smirks.

"Are you planning on stalking me there, now? Only making appointments when you know I'm on?"

"I don't make doctor's appointments at all, if I can help it."

"Everyone gets sick from time to time."

"Not me."

"I don't think you can keep yourself healthy with pure willpower alone," John says. "Unless you have a super healthy diet and fitness routine, but with the number of times you've ordered pizza..."

"Five times in a matter of months is hardly a lot."

"Six," John corrects, and then a sheepish expression comes over his face. "But who's counting?"

(The answer to that, apparently, is both of them.)

After a moment, a teasing grin comes over John's face that Sherlock can't understand. Sherlock frowns at him. "What?"

"You know there are better ways to befriend someone than requesting them whenever you want food, or even making doctor's appointments with them."

"I never said I was planning on making appointments with you. I told you, I don't get sick."

"You still asked me where I'm working. Are you sure you're not planning on stalking me?"

"Don't be ridiculous."

John just grins. "But seriously," he says after a pause.

"Seriously what?"

"If you want to keep in touch with me, you can just, I don't know, ask for my number or my email address or something."

"Who says I want to keep in touch with you?"

"You aren't really going to deny it, are you? The fact that you requested me on my last day says you want to keep in touch with me."

"It does not."

John rolls his eyes, letting out a brief laugh. He doesn't seem all that bothered by Sherlock's statement. "Whatever you say," he says. "But, honestly, I find you interesting. I wouldn't mind keeping in touch with you, either."

Sherlock isn't sure what to say to that, so he just blinks. He continues to stare at John, even when John pulls a small notepad out of his pocket, scribbles down what Sherlock realises a moment later is his number, and tears the page out to leave on the table.

"I have to be getting back," he says. "You don't have to do anything if you don't want to. I get it if I've read this wrong; feel free to just toss that out. But, if I'm right, and you want to meet up sometime, then you can let me know."

"You don't know me," Sherlock says, when his brain comes back online. "Why would you want to be friends with me?"

"I know enough to know that I'd like to know you better," John says with a shrug. "And Mike said good things about you."

"No one says good things about me."

"Mike does. He also said that you don't have many friends, and apparently the fact that you were having conversations with me without insulting me is impressive."

Sherlock isn't sure what to say to that, either. It's not often that he's speechless; the fact that John has caused this twice within the past several minutes is odd.

John shrugs his shoulders, and gets to his feet, picking up his cane from where it is leaning against the table. "It's up to you. Just thought I'd leave the option there." He takes a couple of steps towards the door, and then he looks over his shoulder with a smile. "It's been nice meeting you, Sherlock," he says.

Sherlock lets out a hum of agreement. It's the closest thing he can do to getting the last word before John steps out the door.


	7. Drunk

**Author's Note:** Within twenty-four hours, last week's fic skyrocketed to being the most popular of this series yet. I'm interested to know what about it made it so special. Thanks so much to everyone who left a review or a favourite!

A million thanks to my beautiful beta, Becca (Ao3's LlamaWithAPen).

* * *

Prompt from Tumblr user shittemore's "some neighbour AUs" post: _It's like 3AM and my roommate locked me out of the house and I forgot my keys and I'm really drunk pls take pity on me and let me crash at your place for the night o' neighbor of mine AU._

 **Drunk**

Friendship comes in many forms.

Sometimes, friendship comes in football games or study groups, learning from each other, challenging each other to do better without realising there was ever any real competition.

Sometimes, friendship comes in emails, sent whenever you have the chance, to someone you never see in person but feel close to nonetheless.

Sometimes, friendship comes in hugs, or squeezes on the shoulder, and reminders that you are never alone.

And sometimes, friendship comes with pounding on the door at three o'clock in the morning, slurring, "BILL IF YOU DON'T LET ME IN RIGHT THIS INSTANT I'M GOING TO SET FIRE TO EVERYTHING YOU LOVE."

(To be fair, this last form doesn't happen quite so often.)

John has never been a big drinker. There are too many bad thoughts associated with it. Growing up, John has seen his father come home drunk too many times, yelling and slurring and eventually passing out on the sofa. He's seen his sister, once she hit her teenage years, following in their father's footsteps, drinking and crying until she makes herself sick. These experiences put a rather strong association in John's mind of 'drunkenness' and 'bad things', and so, while some of his friends eagerly celebrated the day they hit the legal age of drinking by making up for seventeen years of sobriety in a single night, John was always happier being the designated sober friend. He could have just as much fun as the rest of them, and actually remember it the next morning, hangover-free.

However, this is not to say that John never allows himself the occasional drink. He won't go out with the sheer purpose of getting drunk, but he doesn't mind catching up with his mates at a pub over a beer or two, or having a glass of wine with dinner when he goes on a date. He's not stupid; he knows his limits, knows to pace himself, drink water, and he knows when he needs to stop. But that doesn't mean that John is going to outright refuse every drink he is offered. There is a time and a place for everything, after all. Times like today, the last day of John's exams, is definitely one such time.

So, when John's friends called him up and told him that he should get down to the pub for post-exam drinks, John accepted.

And when one of John's friends offered to shout him a drink when he turned up, because he'd been working so hard the past few weeks and he'd 'earnt it', John accepted.

And when another of John's friends later offered to buy him a second, to say thanks for the help that John offered him with his study, John accepted.

And – you can guess how the rest of the night went.

Which is why John is here, standing outside his room, banging on the door and shouting through the walls in the hope that his roommate will awaken from his deep, deep slumber and let John in.

John's key will still be sitting where John left it, on his desk, behind the locked front door. He's furious with himself for forgetting it, though this isn't the first time it's happened. Having a roommate that John spends a lot of his time with has lulled him into a false sense of security: on the occasions when John has forgotten his key, Bill has either had his, or has already been home to open the door when John knocks on it. Similarly, when Bill forgets his own keys, John's been able to let him in. The chances of both of them forgetting their keys at the same time and needing to call campus security are very slim.

The chances of Bill being fast asleep at three o'clock in the morning when John comes home without a key, however, are much less slim.

And Bill Murray can sleep through _anything_. John should know; one night, some idiot set the toaster on fire in the common room and set off the fire alarm, and John had to drag Bill out of bed by his feet before he even so much as stirred. It's been a joke between John and his friends for most of their university lives: if anyone wanted to assassinate Bill, they'd only have to wait until he fell asleep. The man could probably sleep through a bloody war if he tried.

Everyone else in the building, however, does not have Bill's supernatural sleeping abilities. The more John bangs and shouts, the more he can hear people moving around in his rooms, turning lights on. Some of them, further down the hallway, poke their heads out the door to see what all the commotion is about. Others simply yell "For God's sake, shut up!" through the wall. John would care, normally, but alcohol has a rather drastic effect on one's self-awareness. He only cares enough to yell the ever-creative comeback of "You shut up!" at one of the angry neighbours, but otherwise, his attention is focussed on waking up Bill, whatever the cost.

However, as the minutes pass, it becomes clearer and clearer that Bill is not waking up any time soon. At this point, it's probably safe to assume that everyone within hearing range is awake, but not Bill. John is exhausted – it's been a long night after a long week after an even longer month, and he's ready to pass out on his bed and sleep for at least ten hours straight. He barely has the energy to keep knocking.

It's at this point that he hears the sound of a door opening, and he has a joyous moment of believing that Bill has finally, _finally_ awoken, before he realises that the door being opened is not his, but the one next door. John recognises the man standing behind it, but only vaguely. He's fairly certain he's had a class or two with him before, though he can't for the life of him remember his name, not at this point. He's also certain that he has never had any sort of interaction with him – not a conversation, nor even a nod of the head as they pass each other in the halls.

John doesn't care. At this point, an open door is an invitation.

John's neighbour does not look quite as groggy as you might expect from someone who has just been woken up. He's also fully dressed, which makes it clear that he's not been in bed. John doesn't know why the man would be awake and fully dressed at three o'clock in the morning. He also doesn't care. The only thing he does care about is the fact that John can see a sofa in the room behind the man, and John wants it.

So, John barely gives the man an opportunity to express his frustration in words before John is trying to stoop past him to get into the room.

Whatever the man had initially been about to say is reduced to an indignant sound. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Sofa," John says, as though that is a completely acceptable explanation.

"Yes, I have a sofa," the man says, side-stepping to block John's path before he can enter the room, "and no, you cannot use it."

John frowns, sticking out his bottom lip, and he leans against the door frame. It's difficult to stay standing, especially given that tilting his head back to meet the man's eyes is making him dizzy. Does the man have to be this tall?

"I need sleep," John says. His voice is slightly slurred. "Sofa's fine."

"I'm fairly certain you have a sofa in your own room," says the man. "And a bed."

John nods very seriously, as though this is a compelling argument to be pondered. "Good point," he says, and then he turns back to his own door, taking in a deep breath and once again starting to yell, "BILL-"

He barely gets more than a word out before the man grabs his arm, and John cuts himself off, looking first at the point of contact and then back up at the man.

"You're tall," he states.

The man ignores this, staring at John with an expression that is both thoughtful and exasperated. "Your roommate is not going to wake up any time soon, and you're just going to stand there and yell until you eventually pass out."

"I'm not going to pass out," John says. The fact that he's almost swaying on his feet makes this a lot less convincing. Or maybe the room is spinning. John can't tell.

"At least if you passed out you'd be quiet," the man says. "I'm not going to get anything else done if you're out here, so you might as well come in."

"Sofa?" John asks hopefully, and when the man nods his head he grins so brightly you'd think he'd just been offered the best present in the world.

The man steps out of the way and John eagerly moves into the room. Well, as eagerly as he can manage when the world still seems to be spinning, and he's still keeping his hand on the wall so he doesn't collapse. When he makes it to the sofa, he lets himself fall onto it face-first, and he lets out a happy sound at how soft it is, at how each of his muscles seems to be melting into the seat.

"You're the best neighbour ever," he says, but his voice is muffled by the cushion. He shifts so that he can turn his head, and then repeats it, emphasising the word 'best'.

"I'm really not," his neighbour says, regarding him carefully. "And if you throw up on my floor..."

"I'm not gonna throw up," John says, before the man can finish whatever threat he was about to make. "Just sleep. Bed time now."

The man sighs, and he may very well say something else, but at that point, John feels himself start to drift off. Given how tired he is, he doesn't even try to resist, and he's out in a matter of minutes.

OoO

John wakes the following morning and regrets all his life decisions.

He only opens his eyes for a second before he's squeezing them shut again, the light in the room too bright even behind his eyelids. His head is throbbing, and the rest of his body aches. He's in a weird position, lying on his stomach with his head elevated, neck turned to the side in a way that will leave a crick in it when he gets up. One of his arms has ended up wrapped around himself so his hand is against his upper back, and when he flexes his fingers he doesn't realise at first that it's his own hand touching him.

He doesn't realise where he is or remember what has happened. The only thing he's aware of is that he is sore and his bed is unusually uncomfortable.

The room is too loud, too. He can hear the sound of a chair creaking, and the sound of glass against wood, or the clicking and ringing of glasses that are gently tapped against each other. With his eyes closed, he's certain it's Bill making that noise, and really, is that necessary? Is it impossible for Bill to be a little bit quieter?

He manages to force his eyes open, prepared to tell Bill off for being so loud, before he realises that Bill isn't responsible for the noises.

The general layout of the room is exactly like John's. The view is wrong; John is used to waking up on his own bed, and having the view of the desk, but had John woken up on his own sofa, this is what he would have seen – his bed and his desk pressed up against the opposite wall. However, the layout is where the similarities end. The walls are bare of John's posters, instead only containing a large periodic table. Instead of piles of medical textbooks on the desk, there are test tubes and beakers and a Bunsen burner that John is pretty sure is supposed to be in the science lab. Sitting at the desk, facing away from John, is the person responsible for all the noise – a person who is far too tall and too lanky to be Bill, with hair too dark and too curly.

If John was more able to think straight, he might have panicked, because he's either not in his room or there is a complete stranger in his room, and who knows what weird chemical concoctions are being mixed together in those test tubes. However, John is tired and sore and his head feels fuzzy, and he's too busy mentally complaining about the pain to be worrying about this man's presence.

He tries to roll over into a less uncomfortable position, his muscles protesting with every movement, and he groans. The man at the desk does not turn around at the sound, but he does react to it. "Ah, you're awake," he says, in a voice that is much too low to be Bill's (just in case John had any lingering doubts). "I was beginning to think you died."

"Where's Bill?" John manages to ask. His voice sounds croaky, and he attempts to swallow to make his throat feel less dry. It doesn't do much.

"Probably in his own room, enjoying not having to deal with you groaning in pain every few seconds," the man says.

John frowns for a moment, though even furrowing his brow seems to make his head hurt more. "His room?" he repeats.

The man stops what he's doing, putting the test tube down on the desk, and he turns the chair to look at John, raising his eyebrows. "You thought you were in your own room?"

"Aren't I?"

"You were drunk last night. I thought you'd have at least some recollection."

The man is speaking perfect English, but it doesn't seem to make any sense in John's mind. He squeezes his eyes shut tight as he plays it over in his head, trying to work out what the man means. Why isn't he in his own room? He should be in his own room. Though his own room should have his biology textbooks and movie posters, not test tubes and the periodic table of elements.

"Recollection of what, exactly?" he asks after a pause.

"You were locked out of your room and you decided that my sofa was a better option."

John stares at the man's face for a moment, and then finally, something clicks in his head. Maybe he's finally waking up properly. "Ah, Christ," he mutters. "You're my neighbour."

"Finally."

John presses the heels of his palms to his eyes, wishing his head would stop spinning and throbbing like it's doing now. He can hear his neighbour moving around, but he doesn't open his eyes and pay attention to him until he hears the man say, "Here," and he opens his eyes to find that the man is now standing next to the sofa, holding a box of paracetamol and a glass of water.

It takes John a moment to find the strength to sit upright so that he can take the glass and the box from the man's hands, muttering a quick "Cheers" as he does. He pops a pill into his hand and then puts it in his mouth and swallows it with about half the glass of water. He almost spills some of the water down his face in the process, but he wipes it quickly with the back of his hand.

When he opens his eyes again, he finds that his neighbour is staring at him with a sort of intensity that makes John feel like he's under a microscope. He looks away for a moment to see if the man drops his gaze at the break in eye contact, but he does not.

After a moment, John asks, "What?"

The man takes a step back to slide into his seat at the desk, turning the chair so that it's facing John. "Just out of interest, do you remember anything from last night?"

The question is not one John wants to hear, because it immediately makes him feel like there is something important, or something embarrassing, that he should be remembering. "Please tell me I didn't do anything stupid," he says.

"That depends on your definition of stupid," the man says, and John wants to hit himself. Fortunately, the man continues, "If your mind has jumped to the worst possible conclusion, however, I assure you that you didn't do anything that would cause any sort of physical or psychological harm, to yourself or to anyone else. Although you may have angered a few people with how loud you were."

John isn't sure if the statement makes him feel more relieved or more humiliated. He hopes that whatever loud thing he was doing wasn't too terrible.

"Now," the man says again. "What do you remember?"

John rubs his eyes before responding. "I definitely remember going out with my mates," he says. "At the pub. They kept buying me drinks."

"Obviously."

"I remember taking a cab back and I remember getting out to come up here – but I don't actually remember getting up here or getting into my room. Well, your room. Obviously I'm not in my room." He frowns. He's not used to getting so drunk that he has blank spots in his memory. It's a little bit disconcerting. "That's about it."

The man hums. "Makes sense. You must have been exhausted when you got up here, given how quickly you fell asleep. Granted, you were banging on your door for at least fifteen minutes before I let you in."

"Yeah, um, sorry about that," John says. "Did you invite me in, or did I not give you that option?"

"I did invite you in," the man says. "Though that was mostly because you were desperate and I wanted to get some work done, which would have been made far too difficult if you had still been banging on the door."

"I really am sorry," John says. He feels like that's not enough, he owes this man at least a thousand more apologies. "I swear I'm not usually like this."

"Funny how often a drunken man will say that next day," the man says. "Alcohol doesn't change you, it just lowers your inhibitions."

John raises his hands to his face and rubs his eyes with the heels of his palms.

Then the man continues, "Do you always sleep talk, or is that just something you do when you're drunk, too?" and John immediately wants the sofa to open up and swallow him whole. He feels his entire face heat, and he's glad he'd chosen that moment to rub his eyes so at least his hands are partially covering his face.

"Oh, Christ," He mutters. "Please tell me I didn't say anything embarrassing."

Through the gaps between his fingers, he can see the man smirking. It makes him feel even worse.

"Most of it was rather ineloquent," the man says. "Your friends came up a few times. I think your subconscious was having a conversation with 'Bill'. Otherwise, it was a lot of mindless babbling."

"Thank God," John mutters. "Look, I really am I sorry for... taking over your room. I don't usually drink that much. I don't drink that often, either."

"Clearly."

"I'll go see if Bill will let me in now. Again, I really am sorry." Maybe he can find some way of making it up to the man. Maybe he'll buy him a nice box of chocolates to say sorry. Does the man like chocolates? Is that something he should ask first, or will that just sound weird?

He goes to get to his feet, groaning as his arms protest, but he stands too fast. The whole world is spinning and a second later, he's on the floor with little idea of how he got there.

This is precisely why he doesn't drink. He groans, pushing himself into a sitting position, and then he notices that the man has come over and offered him a hand. John considers refusing on principle, because he's never liked being seen as incompetent, but quite frankly, he's too hungover to do anything at the moment and it's not like he's going to make a bigger fool of himself than he already has. He takes the man's hand, relying on it a little more than he would like to as he gets to his feet. He would have tried to standing, to see if he could, but the man's other hand goes to his shoulder and gently guides him back onto the sofa.

"Maybe you should give yourself a moment," he suggests, crouching down and picking up the empty glass of water. John hears him take it into the kitchen, fill it up at the tap, and then he hands it back to John. John takes it and finishes the entire thing in three gulps.

"Ta," he says. "I really am sorry."

"And you've apologised several times now. It's getting redundant."

"Right, sorry," John says, and then cringes. "And sorry for saying sorry."

The man rolls his eyes, and returns to his desk, picking up a test tube.

John watches him for a moment, before saying, "I thought we weren't supposed to take them out of the labs."

"We're not," the man says. "But the labs are too busy for me to work in. Plus, the doors lock automatically after eight, so I can't work in there overnight."

"Why would you even be working overnight? Shouldn't you be sleeping?"

"Dull."

"But necessary."

"On occasion, yes. Most of the time, it's dull, and inconvenient."

John tries getting to his feet again, and has a little more success this time. He's a little bit unsteady, but he manages to walk the couple of steps between the sofa and the desk. He makes sure to put a hand on the back of the man's chair once he can reach it so that he has a little bit more support. If the man notices, he doesn't respond, which John takes to mean that he doesn't mind.

"What are you working on, anyway?" he asks, looking over the piles of lab equipment that the man has set up on the desk. He doesn't see any chemicals that could cause any severe harm or explosions, as long as the man knows what he's doing, which is a little bit reassuring. At least he can be reasonably certain that his neighbour isn't accidentally going to blow up the entire building. Or purposely blow up the building. Who knows what he's been up to last night?

"An experiment," the man replies, ever so helpfully, and John rolls his eyes at the vagueness of the statement.

"I thought chem only had assignments due in the middle of semester, not at the end."

"It's not for an assignment," the man says. "At least, not for a course. This is for my own interest."

"You stole test tubes from the chemistry labs for your own interest," John says. He doesn't phrase it like a question.

"I _borrowed_ them," the man says, with emphasis on the word. "I plan on returning them when I'm done."

"Don't they usually count the equipment from time to time, to make sure it's not missing?" John asks. "I knew a guy who broke one of the beakers in our second year. Tried to cover it up, but I'm sure they found out within the next forty-eight hours that they were short one beaker."

"They make sure that all of it is in its rightful place during the semester, when they expect people to use the labs. They wouldn't bother counting them during exam period, especially given that they lock the labs."

John raises his eyebrows. "So, not only did you steal test tubes –"

"Borrowed," the man mutters.

"– but you also broke into a locked lab."

"It was hardly difficult. Took me less than a minute to pick the lock – I'm rather concerned about the security here."

"They probably don't feel the need to put particularly expensive locks on the lab doors," John says, "given that they wouldn't expect people to be breaking into them."

"Seems to be the case, though it's not a particularly well-thought out idea. There are plenty of dangerous chemicals in the labs. Choosing less complex locks just leaves open opportunities for people to break in and steal them with the intention of causing harm."

John hadn't thought about that, but now that the man has brought it up, he thinks it's a very good point. He hopes that the man is just particularly good at picking locks, and that it's not that the locks themselves are so inadequate that any particularly dangerous individual could get in and make something explode.

The man continues, "If you're going to try to appeal to my morality and tell me that I should return everything, don't bother. It's hardly as though I'm harming anyone, and they'll be back within a week."

John hadn't been planning to appeal to the man's morality. Whether or not this man had lab equipment in his room had no impact on John's life, and while John was usually a well-behaved student, he isn't about to turn into the sort of goody-two-shoes that goes around and turns people in for misbehaviour. Besides, the man "borrowing" test tubes for his own interests is hardly the worst thing that he could be doing, and it's not as though John has never done anything reckless. Everyone's got at least one story from university, after all.

The man's attention has returned to the test tubes, and John's gaze wanders around the room. He takes in the titles of the books on the desk – mostly chemistry, though there's a first-year psychology textbook hidden in the pile. He recognises the titles of some of the chemistry books as ones that he had used in previous courses, though some of them are unfamiliar. He wonders if that means that they're for a course that John has not taken, or if it is because they are books that the man has bought based on his own interest. Given the periodic table on the wall and the fact that the man is experimenting in his spare time, John is inclined to think that it's the latter: clearly, the man's interest in chemistry goes beyond that of your usual chemistry major.

"Are you looking for something?" the man asks, snapping John back to reality. He's surprised that the man has noticed that John was looking around the room at all, seeing as he hasn't moved from his position on the chair and has not so much as looked over his shoulder.

"No, I'm just taking in your room," John asks.

"Why?"

John shrugs his shoulders. "I don't know. Because I felt like it?"

The man puts down the test tube and swivels on his chair to face John. "You're standing now," he points out. "Is there any reason why you're still here?"

"Not really," John says. "You're experimenting. It's interesting."

Clearly, this is not the response that the man expected, seeing as he frowns, and his tone of voice indicates surprise when he says, "Is it?"

"Of course it is. I mean, I'm studying chem too, a bit, so I enjoy this sort of thing anyway, but the fact that you're doing this in your own time is interesting."

"Oh," the man says, and then he turns his chair back to face the desk.

John wants to ask what the man is actually doing – is he trying to make something in particular, or is he combining chemicals just for the sake of it, just to see what happens? The latter sounds like bad science when you put it that way, but that said, great science often comes out of people asking "What if?"

However, the man's attention has returned to his test tubes, and John can take a hint. It was nice enough that the man let John crash on his sofa; the least John can do is give him his space now.

So, John takes his hand off the back of the man's chair, taking a step back and giving himself a moment to make sure that he can stay standing now. The painkillers have kicked in now, which helps – his head isn't spinning quite so much, and he doesn't immediately fall to the floor, which in and of itself is an improvement compared to last time.

"I'll be off, then," he says. He goes to apologise again for last night before remembering that the man had told him to stop because it was becoming redundant, and so instead, he says, "Thank you for letting me stay last night. I mean, I know I didn't give you much of a choice, but – thanks."

The man doesn't respond, perhaps too engrossed in his experiment to pay any real attention to what John is saying, or perhaps silently hinting that he wants John to hurry up and leave and that he doesn't think John deserves a 'You're welcome'. Which is fair enough, really.

"Maybe I'll see you around sometime," John says in way of a final goodbye, and he turns to head towards the door.

"You live right next to me," the man says behind him, confirming that he has actually heard and processed what John was saying. "I believe 'seeing each other around' is unavoidable."

John smiles a bit. "I guess so. I'll try not to come barging into your room at three o'clock in the morning again."

"I'll only trust your ability to keep to that promise if you're sober."

"Don't worry," John says. "I don't plan on repeating this experience any time soon."

"Good," the man says, and he turns his attention back to his experiment as John steps out the door.

OoO

John finds out a few days later that the man's name is Sherlock.

John finds this out not from Sherlock himself, but from a rumour. Apparently, someone saw John leaving Sherlock's room, and somehow, that word spread, and the next thing John knows, it feels like half the school is convinced that John and Sherlock are together.

No attempts he makes at convincing people otherwise are successful, after that.


	8. Modern Communication

**Author's Note** : When I wrote this originally, I had it set up so that all of John's texts were left-aligned and all of Sherlock's texts were right-aligned. Then I uploaded it here and made the discovery that this website does not like right-aligned text. I've settled for italicising Sherlock's texts to make it easier to read, but if you'd like to see it in its originally formatted form, please visit this story on Archive of Our Own.

Once again, a billion thanks to my brilliant beta, Becca! (Who can also be found on Archive of Our Own, under LlamaWithAPen, so if you go there you should check her out too.)

* * *

Prompt from Tumblr user toxixpumpkin's "Awkward First Meeting AUs post": _"Hey you called this number at like 3AM and we talked about some pretty heavy shit do you remember any of that?"_

 **Modern Communication**

29/1/2011 Saturday

From: +07517890531  
Hey, how are you doing?  
4:38PM

 _To: +07517890531_  
 _Who is this?_  
 _SH_  
 _4:40PM_

From: +07517890531  
John, from the other night.  
4:43PM

 _To: +07517890531_  
 _How remarkably vague._  
 _SH_  
 _4:44PM_

 _To: +07517890531_  
 _Should that name be familiar? Beyond the fact that "John" is a remarkably common name and it's probably safe to assume that I have encountered multiple "John"s throughout my life._  
 _SH_  
 _4:46PM_

From: +07517890531  
Actually, I don't know that I gave you my name the other night, so it might not be familiar. So, hi, I'm John, now you can save that in your phone and put a name to a face. Well, name to a number anyway.  
4:52PM

 _Create Contact Name:_  
 _John_  
 _Save_

 _To: John_  
 _Should your number be familiar to me?_  
 _SH_  
 _4:59PM_

From: John  
I'd have thought so. You called this number at like 3am the other night and we talked about some pretty heavy stuff.  
5:04PM

From: John  
Do you remember any of that at all?  
5:05PM

 _To: John_  
 _Yes._  
 _SH_  
 _DELETED_

 _To: John_  
 _I think you must have the wrong number._  
 _SH_  
 _5:08PM_

From: John  
I'm sure I have the right number. You are Sherlock aren't you?  
5:15PM

From: John  
You were kind of out of it when we talked though. Kind of figured you were pretty drunk. So I don't blame you for not remembering.  
5:28PM

 _To: John_  
 _Wrong._  
 _DELETED_

 _To: John_  
 _Why are you texting me now?_  
 _SH_  
 _5:32PM_

From: John  
I wanted to check up on you.  
5:35PM

 _To: John_  
 _Why?_  
 _SH_  
 _5:36PM_

From: John  
Because you seemed like you weren't doing very well the other night. I mean, the fact that you were drunk and telling a complete stranger stuff like that probably proves you weren't at your best, doesn't it?  
5:40PM

 _To: John_  
 _Not my point. Regardless of how I was the other night, why should you care to check up?_  
 _SH_  
 _5:43PM_

From: John  
Why wouldn't I?  
5:45PM

 _To: John_  
 _Why would you? I'm a complete stranger._  
 _SH_  
 _5:58PM_

From: John  
Yes. What's your point?  
6:01PM

 _To: John_  
 _That's not an answer._  
 _SH_  
 _6:04PM_

From: John  
I don't know. I was worried about you, that's all. I don't know why, it's not like I sat there and went I'm worried about that bloke Sherlock from the other night because of x y z.  
6:07PM

 _To: John_  
 _Oh._  
 _SH_  
 _6:22PM_

From: John  
That took you a moment. Speechless?  
6:24PM

From: John  
Look, you don't have to say anything to me. I'm a perfect stranger, I know that, and maybe I shouldn't have texted. But I just wanted to check in in case there was anything I could do to help.  
6:28PM

 _To: John_  
 _What could you possibly do to help?_  
 _SH_  
 _6:32PM_

From: John  
No idea whatsoever.  
6:34PM

From: John  
We don't need to talk. It's fine. But if you do want to talk about anything, you can text me, yeah?  
6:36PM

 _To: John_  
 _I don't talk about things._  
 _SH_  
 _6:37PM_

From: John  
Course you don't.  
6:38PM

1 February 2011 Tuesday

From: John  
So, today I was on my way home from work, and every single phone box I walked past rang while I walked past it. Has that ever happened to you before?  
6:28PM

 _To: John_  
 _Why are you texting me about this?_  
 _SH_  
 _6:30PM_

From: John  
So, eventually, I was like, okay, this is weird, I'm going to go pick up the phone and just see what happens. And what happened? Some guy who knows my name starts talking to me, does some weird thing with the security cameras, and then tells me to get into a car.  
6:34PM

From: John  
So of course I get in the car because it didn't really seem like I had a choice at that point and I ended up getting taken to some weird abandoned warehouse. Let me just clarify that nothing happens to me ever and now this makes it sound like I accidentally fell into some sort of weird horror movie.  
6:37PM

 _To: John_  
 _He had no right._  
 _SH_  
 _6:37PM_

From: John  
Ah, you do know him. Perfect. Who is he?  
6:40PM

 _To: John_  
 _The most dangerous man in Britain. What did he want?_  
 _SH_  
 _6:41PM_

From: John  
He wanted to know how I knew you and what I knew about you and what my relationship with you was. Which is ridiculous because I don't even know what you look like so how the hell could I have a relationship with you of any sort?  
6:44PM

From: John  
Actually, on that note, how the hell did I know I'd been texting you? Does he have your phone tapped or something?  
6:46PM

From: John  
Does he have MY phone tapped?  
6:49PM

 _To: John_  
 _He has everyone's phones tapped. Don't feel special._  
 _SH_  
 _6:55PM_

From: John  
Oh, I'm so reassured. Who was he?  
6:58PM

 _To: John_  
 _The British Government, more or less. What did you tell him?_  
 _SH_  
 _7:02PM_

From: John  
What could I tell him? We've had two conversations, and you were so drunk the first time that you don't even remember me.  
7:04PM

 _To: John_  
 _Did you tell him that?_  
 _SH_  
 _7:09PM_

From: John  
That you were drunk off your face? No, not really. Mentioned that you didn't even remember me, though.  
7:11PM

From: John  
He said you "delete" things. Like you're a computer or something.  
7:12PM

 _To: John_  
 _I do delete things. No point cluttering my hard drive with irrelevant information._  
 _SH_  
 _7:15PM_

From: John  
You're making me think you might be a robot.  
7:16PM

From: John  
Oh my god, you are a robot and this is some weird Turing test.  
7:18PM

 _To: John_  
 _You're familiar with the Turing test?_  
 _SH_  
 _7:22PM_

From: John  
Only as a result of watching too much sci-fi.  
7:24PM

From: John  
So, are you a robot? Because you made a pretty convincing human the first time we spoke.  
7:25PM

 _To: John_  
 _Some people might tell you that my humanity is questionable, but no, I am not a robot._  
 _SH_  
 _7:26PM_

From: John  
Sounds just like something a robot would say.  
7:28PM

From: John  
Anyway. So, you, deleting things. That's a thing?  
7:32PM

 _To: John_  
 _Yes._  
 _SH_  
 _7:32PM_

From: John  
Right. However, whoever it was that I spoke to also said that you don't usually delete people.  
7:34PM

 _To: John_  
 _Yes, that is a bit harder to do._  
 _SH_  
 _7:36PM_

From: John  
And yet you deleted me?  
7:38PM

From: John  
I'm taking your silence to confirm that you didn't actually forget our entire conversation from the other night.  
7:51PM

 _To: John_  
 _Is that what my brother told you?_  
 _SH_  
 _7:56PM_

From: John  
He was your BROTHER?  
8:00PM

From: John  
And I thought my sister and I were dysfunctional.  
8:02PM

 _To: John_  
 _You might as well know. Fewer letters needed to type out 'brother' than 'British Government'. What did he tell you?_  
 _SH_  
 _8:03PM_

From: John  
He said that you have an absolutely excellent memory and that he would be very surprised to know that you had either forgotten about or deleted me, even if you didn't have a clear mind that night.  
8:06PM

From: John  
I'm taking your silence to mean that your brother was right, then.  
8:28PM

 _To: John_  
 _You can stop taking my silence to mean anything. Maybe I'm just doing things more important than texting you._  
 _SH_  
 _8:32PM_

From: John  
You reply within a couple of minutes every time except when I've said something personal. I'm saying that's because I'm right and not because you've just coincidentally found something to do every time I mention anything heavy.  
8:35PM

 _To: John_  
 _Stop psychoanalysing me._  
 _SH_  
 _8:37PM_

From: John  
Your brother abducted me on my way home from work, I think I have psychoanalysing rights.  
8:40PM

 _To: John_  
 _I'm not sure where your logic comes from there._  
 _SH_  
 _8:43PM_

From: John  
Okay. So you lied when you said that you didn't remember me. I'm taking that as meaning you wanted to get rid of me.  
8:47PM

 _To: John_  
 _Brilliant observation. Maybe you should take that as your cue to leave me alone._  
 _SH_  
 _8:52PM_

From: John  
After our chat, I'm a bit too invested in your life to just leave you alone.  
8:54PM

 _To: John_  
 _Why?_  
 _SH_  
 _8:55PM_

From: John  
Because I'm a caring person.  
8:57PM

 _To: John_  
 _No one is selfless._  
 _SH_  
 _9:00PM_

From: John  
Optimistic, aren't you? OK, what's my selfish, ulterior motive?  
9:03PM

 _To: John_  
 _I don't know. But there has to be something._  
 _SH_  
 _9:10PM_

From: John  
I've been talking to you for the past two and a half hours. You still think I'm doing this selfishly?  
9:12PM

 _To: John_  
 _I don't know you._  
 _SH_  
 _9:17PM_

From: John  
No, you don't. Maybe that was why you were able to talk to me the other night. It's easier to talk to someone who doesn't mean anything to you. You don't need to worry about them judging you or anything.  
9:23PM

 _To: John_  
 _You're psychoanalysing me again._  
 _SH_  
 _9:25PM_

From: John  
Maybe so. I have a point though. You opened up to me. And obviously that's why you don't want to talk anymore. Like you're shying away now that I know too much.  
9:27PM

 _To: John_  
 _That sounds needlessly dramatic._  
 _SH_  
 _9:30PM_

From: John  
Are you saying I'm wrong?  
9:33PM

 _To: John_  
 _I'm replying so that you don't assume my silence means I'm agreeing with you._  
 _SH_  
 _9:34PM_

From: John  
Ah, but you didn't answer the question, which basically means the same thing.  
9:37PM

 _To: John_  
 _I don't know why I spoke to you the other night. Surely you weren't this annoying._  
 _SH_  
 _9:40PM_

From: John  
No, I'm a wonderful person, and a great listener.  
9:42PM

 _To: John_  
 _Is there a point to this conversation?_  
 _SH_  
 _9:44PM_

From: John  
Yes. Tell me one thing. Did talking to me the other night help?  
9:48PM

 _To: John_  
 _Yes. But, as you probably gathered, I was not myself that night. SH_  
 _9:50PM_

From: John  
Doesn't matter. My point is that you felt better - at least a bit - after talking to me. So, my point is that, if you want to talk to me again, you can.  
9:52PM

 _To: John_  
 _Why would you offer that?_  
 _SH_  
 _9:55PM_

From: John  
Because it's the right thing to do? God, are you this cynical about everyone?  
9:58PM

 _To: John_  
 _It's not without reason._  
 _SH_  
 _10:00PM_

From: John  
I'm sure it's not. But, whatever. My point is that you can talk to me if you want. Anyway, it's late, so I'm going to bed. Text me if you need anything.  
10:02PM

 _To: John_  
 _What could I possibly need from you?_  
 _SH_  
 _10:04PM_

From: John  
Nothing at all. Goodnight.  
10:08PM

12 February 2011 Saturday

 _To: John_  
 _Would you kill a man for taking your job?_  
 _SH_  
 _11:13AM_

From: John  
What? No.  
11:16AM

 _To: John_  
 _Thought so._  
 _SH_  
 _11:17AM_

From: John  
Where on earth did that come from?  
12:08PM

 _To: John_  
 _Proving a point._  
 _SH_  
 _12:10PM_

From: John  
What point? Are you planning on killing someone for taking your job?  
12:12PM

 _To: John_  
 _No, of course not. I'm trying to prove that a suspect in a murder investigation did not kill the victim. The victim having taken said suspect's job is not a good enough motive to warrant suspicion._  
 _SH_  
 _12:15PM_

From: John  
Hey, just because I wouldn't personally murder someone for taking my job doesn't mean no one else would. You can't really base that motive off my answer.  
12:17PM

 _To: John_  
 _No, of course I can't, don't be stupid. There are several other reasons why I don't suspect him. Among those is the fact that I don't believe one would kill someone for taking their job unless they were prone to aggressive tendencies beforehand. He has no evidence of being aggressive. Plus, he's the wrong build. The victim wasn't a small man by any means, and so whoever killed him must have had enough strength to overpower him, as well as likely some sort of combat training given the evidence of the fight_  
 _12:25PM_

 _To: John_  
 _Oh._  
 _SH_  
 _12:28PM_

 _To: John_  
 _Oh, of course._  
 _SH_  
 _12:32PM_

From: John  
Oh what?  
12:36PM

From: John  
What happened?  
12:52PM

From: John  
You aren't going to leave me hanging here, are you?  
1:38PM

From: John  
Or maybe you are. Okay then.  
2:22PM

 _To: John_  
 _You'll be pleased to know I solved it._  
 _SH_  
 _6:16PM_

From: John  
I feel like you're having a conversation that's half with me and half in your own head and you're not realising that I'm not following all of it. Care to explain?  
6:21PM

 _To: John_  
 _I was investigating a murder._  
 _SH_  
 _6:23PM_

From: John  
I gathered that much.  
6:25PM

 _To: John_  
 _The victim was in his late thirties, recently employed by a company to replace another man that they had fired. This other man was Scotland Yard's main suspect, because they believed that being fired was a motive, despite the fact that the other man had never shown signs of reckless behaviour. They also did not take into consideration that the victim had already stepped on many people's toes in his first month of working at the company and had made several enemies. There was evidence of a physical fight before the man was killed - cause of death was a wound from something sharp - and I remembered while I was talking to you that I had seen photos in another employees' office of that employee with a black belt. I did a bit of digging, and it turns out that the reason the victim had gotten hired so quickly was because he was having an affair with the manager, and this other employee found out about it. She was friends with the suspect, so, obviously, she took it somewhat personally that her friend had been replaced with someone who was having an affair with the manager. Confronted him about it after work, got into a fist fight, took advantage of a broken bottle. Dull, really, when you think about it._  
 _SH_  
 _6:38PM_

From: John  
I don't know if I'd call that dull. That's kind of brilliant, that you worked all that out. You're a detective?  
6:43PM

 _To: John_  
 _Consulting detective. I invented the job._  
 _SH_  
 _6:47PM_

From: John  
Consulting detective. Like a private detective?  
6:50PM

 _To: John_  
 _No, they're completely different. People don't hire me. I aid the police when they're out of their depth. Occasionally people will request my assistance, but I reserve the right to refuse cases if they're dull. Which they so often are. Would you believe the number of people who asked for my help finding out if their partner is having an affair? Tedious._  
 _SH_  
 _6:54PM_

From: John  
You must be pretty good, if people are trying to hire you.  
6:58PM

 _To: John_  
 _I am._  
 _SH_  
 _6:59PM_

From: John  
So why were you texting me for help this morning?  
7:03PM

 _To: John_  
 _I wasn't texting you for help, exactly. I just needed someone to talk at. My brain moves far faster than the average person's; on occasion it is useful to slow it down should something jump out at me that I had initially overlooked, as was the case._  
 _SH_  
 _7:05PM_

From: John  
Don't you have people you work with for that? Assistants and other people on the case and such?  
7:08PM

 _To: John_  
 _I don't have an assistant at present, and most of the homicide department don't work with me willingly. Not to mention that they're quite a bit slower than your average person. Really, the standards for hiring at New Scotland Yard are depressingly low._  
 _SH_  
 _7:11PM_

From: John  
So your option was to text the person you'd had all of two conversations with? The person who you tried to get rid of the last time we spoke, for that matter?  
7:14PM

 _To: John_  
 _You did offer yourself for me to text if I wanted to._  
 _SH_  
 _7:16PM_

From: John  
Fair point. Still, this wasn't quite what I had in mind.  
7:19PM

 _To: John_  
 _Problem?_  
 _SH_  
 _7:20PM_

From: John  
No, actually. No problem at all.  
7:24PM

From: John  
If you ever have any more interesting cases like that, do let me know. It was kind of the highlight of my day.  
7:38PM

 _To: John_  
 _Did you have that bad a day?_  
 _SH_  
 _7:42PM_

From: John  
Not bad, really. Just dull. GP work is kind of boring when you've been exposed to something more fast-paced.  
7:48PM

 _To: John_  
 _You're a doctor._  
 _SH_  
 _7:50PM_

 _To: John_  
 _Is that why you wanted to help me the other night? You felt a duty of care?_  
 _SH_  
 _7:51PM_

From: John  
To be honest, I wasn't really thinking it had anything to do with being a doctor.  
7:53PM

 _To: John_  
 _Perhaps it was unconscious._  
 _SH_  
 _7:55PM_

From: John  
Maybe it wasn't. I can't really say anything for certain about that. But, whatever the cause was, I wanted to help. And I did help. And if there is anything more I can do, I'd be happy to help.  
7:59PM

 _To: John_  
 _I can't imagine it is very likely that I'll text you for the same reason as I did the first night. I guarantee that that is not a state I find myself in very often. However, I may text you with regards to case-work, should I need someone to talk to in order to sort out my train of thought. If you find that idea acceptable._  
 _SH_  
 _8:03PM_

From: John  
I did just say your case was the highlight of my day. Kind of like a detective story. I wouldn't mind it if you texted me about it again.  
8:06PM

From: John  
I could be your assistant. Your phone assistant.  
8:07PM

 _To: John_  
 _How very modern._  
 _SH_  
 _8:10PM_

From: John  
It's a new age.  
8:12PM

From: John  
And on that note, I need to make food, so I'll be off for the night. Good luck, text me if you need anything else. I'll be an excellent assistant, I'm sure.  
8:13PM

 _To: John_  
 _We shall soon see. Until next time, John._  
 _SH_  
 _8:15PM_

From: John  
Talk soon, Sherlock.  
8:17PM


	9. The Flatmate

**Author's Note:** First things first, I apologise for my unexpectedly long hiatus. What some of you may not know is that this year was my final, honours year of my bachelor's degree. What this means is that the past six months since I last uploaded, I've run three experiments that ended up with over 160 participants between the three of them, and then wrote it up into a 12,000 word thesis. So, that's kind of taken up most of my time. Fortunately, that thesis has now been submitted, and I can now get back into the swing of writing fiction! I figured I would post this one today because I've made you all wait too long, and then I will endeavour to go back into my original weekend posting schedule. So, for now, enjoy!

A million thanks to Becca (LlamaWithAPen) for finding time to beta this!

* * *

Prompt from Tumblr user ciareus' "Guess who loves aus" post: _'new roommate cooks alone for the first time and almost burns down the house' au._

* * *

 **The Flatmate**

It had been exactly one week since John's new flatmate had moved in, and John had come to the conclusion that he was a vampire.

For starters, John had not yet _seen_ the man. He had been living in the same flat as him for an entire week – and the flat was certainly not large – and yet, John could not even tell you what he looked like. He knew from a discussion with his landlady that the flatmate's name was Sherlock, because she had mentioned it as they were clearing out the second bedroom in preparation for the new arrival, but beyond that, John knew nothing. When he came home from work one day, there were boxes in the living room, and the door to the second bedroom was shut tight, which was how John knew that his flatmate had arrived. Since then, however, he had not so much as caught a glimpse of the man. John would worry that his flatmate was intentionally avoiding him, but as they had not had a personal encounter, he could not for the life of him tell you what it was that he had done to warrant such behaviour.

It was not that the man had not left his room in the entire week that they had been living together. No, he had simply only ever left his room when John was either out of the flat, or in his own room, out of the way. John had a full-time job, so that gave the other man eight or so hours a day to wander around the rest of the flat, or to leave the flat, without John seeing him. Even more striking, however, was the number of times that John heard him leave the flat at night. After John went up to bed, he would hear the second bedroom door open, followed by the front door a few moments later. Most of these nights, the man was still gone when John woke up the next morning. John did not know what it was that the man did in the dark of night, and he wasn't sure he wanted to know, either. It just further supported the vampire theory.

Another thing that supported the vampire theory was that the man did not seem to eat. John had been looking forward to having a flatmate, because it meant that the work he had to do in maintaining the flat and taking care of himself would be halved. They could take turns cooking and cleaning – John would only need to cook half the meals, do half the dishes, and so forth. Instead, even with the new flatmate there, John was still doing all the cooking and all the cleaning, though there were never any extra dishes for him to clean. If the man ate, he must have been clearing up after himself, leaving no evidence of the food. However, John was also aware of the fact that the food in the cupboards and in the fridge did not seem to be decreasing any more rapidly than usual. John hadn't bothered counting particular items – he wasn't that ridiculous – but it certainly seemed to him that the only person eating the food in the fridge was John himself.

So, John had a flatmate who he had never seen, who did not eat, and who left the house at night (and, perhaps that meant he did not sleep). It definitely made it seem like said flatmate was a vampire.

By the end of the week, John was becoming increasingly curious about this mysterious being of a flatmate. It was getting to the point where he was beginning to feel desperate enough to do something to lure his flatmate out of hiding. Perhaps, he thought, he could stay up late one night. He could sit in the living room, and read a book. Maybe he would even pretend to go to his room first, just in case his flatmate was intentionally avoiding him. Then, the flatmate would believe that it was safe to emerge, and he would exit his room, and John could finally, finally put a face to a name. Maybe it would even give him an excuse to strike up conversation, too.

John ended up deciding against this plan, however, because as he thought about it, he realised that the idea was a little creepy. If the man _was_ avoiding him, then surely he had a reason for it, even if John did not have the faintest clue what that reason was. If that were the case, the man would probably be displeased to discover that John had tricked him into emerging from his room and interacting with John, and it might destroy any chance of a potentially civilised flatshare before it had even begun. And, if the man was not avoiding him, then surely they would meet each other eventually. John could not believe that they could live in the same flat for a prolonged period of time without ever meeting, even if this Sherlock was a vampire who only ever came out at night.

And, John was right.

(About them eventually running into each other, not about Sherlock actually being a vampire).

John would have expected their first meeting to be mediocre. He expected them to eventually leave their rooms at the same time, maybe by chance, or maybe they would both come out when their landlady next did her inspection. They would end up seeing each other, and maybe they would stop for introductions, or maybe just nod in passing as they went on their way. Either way, their first meeting would be simple and mundane, just like any other set of flatmates.

John did not expect his first meeting with the mysterious flatmate to begin at three o'clock in the morning, starting with the smell of smoke and the sound of a fire alarm.

Fire alarms are rather brilliant inventions. A deep enough sleeper could sleep through the smell of smoke. A person who is distracted enough by another activity could miss the signs that indicate a fire is starting in another room, and they could remain unaware of it until it is too late. A fire alarm, however, is much harder to miss. It's much harder to ignore the relentless beeping of an alarm that has detected smoke, and even some of the deepest sleepers will awaken to the sound of it. Plus, if you are woken by the sound of a fire alarm in the middle of the night, you do not spend several minutes slowly coming around, wondering what the sound is or how you should turn it off, as though it's a morning alarm. No, when a fire alarm goes off in the dead of night, you immediately go from fast asleep to panic mode, your fight-or-flight response kicking in and telling you to get out of the room _immediately_.

Of course, in between being fast asleep and being wide awake and ready to flee from the room at top speed, there are a few seconds where you are unable to do anything, because you're both groggy and terrified at the same time. But, that's a rather unavoidable consequence of being woken by any loud and relatively foreign noise.

This was precisely what happened when the fire alarm went off in the flat. John was hardly a deep sleeper to start off with: a sound much quieter than that could have woken him up. The fire alarm forced him into the land of consciousness, his heart going from slow and calm to pounding loudly in his chest in a second. He recognised the sound as an alarm immediately – that much was obvious – but for the first several seconds, he felt disoriented and confused, not sure where he was or what he was doing or why everything was so loud or _what was going on_.

After those several seconds, however, the more alert, conscious, rational part of John's brain kicked in, telling him that the sound was a fire alarm, which meant there was a fire, which meant that he needed to get out of the building _now_.

The fire alarms that John had been through during school always told him that, to escape from a burning building, you need to drop to the floor and crawl to avoid as much smoke inhalation as possible. The issue was that panic – especially panic that came with being woken up by a fire alarm – makes it very hard to think about things you learnt in school. John's priority was to get out of the building as fast as possible, and that was much easier to do on his feet. If he had had a second to think, he would have dropped to the floor, because running is not quicker if you pass out from smoke inhalation. With the fire alarm blaring, however, John did not have the chance to consider this.

He yanked the bedroom door open, remembering only after he had grasped the handle that he should have checked for heat behind the door first so he did not burn his hand. Fortunately, the handle was not hot against his skin. There was no sign of flames licking their way up the stairs to his room, but there was a smell of smoke in the air, and he had seen video clips that showed how quickly fires could spread. He might not have had long. He raced down the stairs as quickly as he could manage, one hand on the railing to make sure he did not stumble and fall, and then he reached the landing. He went to move to the next flight of stairs, out the front door and to the safety of the street, and then hesitated. Something caught his attention out of the corner of his eye – a tall figure atop a chair in the kitchen.

When John turned to get a proper look, he realised that the tall figure was a man who was unscrewing the alarm from the roof, taking it down, and finally pulling out the batteries.

The sound ceased instantly. After the deafening beeping, the silence rang in John's ears. However, he did have more important things to think about than the man who had just broken basic safety rule number one and taken the batteries out of the fire alarm. His priority was the actual fire – which, yes, there was. The actual fire was not spreading its way over the floor or engulfing the flat. It was contained to a saucepan on the stove, in which hard sticks of spaghetti sat, burning like an oversized candle.

"What the hell?" John said, rushing over and grabbing the fire blanket from its place under the sink. He was suddenly grateful that he had actually paid attention when he had first moved in and his landlady had shown him where it was. The gas on the stove had fortunately already been turned off (at least John could say that the man had done something right), and he tossed the blanket over the saucepan, smothering the flames. He kept an eye on it for a moment, just to be sure, but when flames did not lick up from underneath the blanket he concluded that the fire had been effectively dealt with. He let out a breath, and then turned to face the man behind him, who had, by then, climbed off the chair and was standing by the kitchen table, still holding the fire alarm and the batteries (in separate hands).

John did not recognise this man's face, but it was probably safe to assume that he was the mysterious flatmate, and not a stranger who had broken into John's flat to set fire to John's spaghetti.

"What the hell were you doing?" John asked, staring at the man incredulously.

"Cooking," the man replied.

"You and I have very different definitions of 'cooking'. Put the damn batteries back into the fire alarm."

"But it was beeping."

"Yes, because there was a fire, that's what it does. You don't pull batteries out of a fire alarm, ever. _Especially_ not when it's going off. How is it supposed to warn you that there's, you know, a fire?"

The man rolled his eyes (which seemed entirely inappropriate to John – _John_ should be the one rolling his eyes, because his flatmate was an idiot. Or he had a death wish. Or he was an idiot with a death wish).

"I didn't need it to warn me that there was a fire," said the idiot-with-a-death-wish. "I could _see_ that there was a fire. I could also see that the fire was not at immediate risk of catching on anything other than the spaghetti itself, so the logical thing to do was to stop the fire alarm from beeping before you and Mrs Hudson woke in a panic."

"The logical thing," John muttered.

The man ignored him, continuing, "Clearly I did not manage fast enough, given you're now awake and lecturing me on the use of fire alarms." He paused for a moment, tilting his head to the side, and then he added, "But, there's no sound from downstairs, so perhaps Mrs Hudson managed to sleep through the alarm."

"No one sleeps through a fire alarm, idiot," John said. "They're designed so that you _can't_ sleep through them."

"You could if you took sleeping pills."

"Yes, and Mrs Hudson doesn't take sleeping pills. Herbal soothers, yes, but nothing that would make her sleep through a fire alarm. She's with her sister this weekend. Didn't she tell you that?"

"Probably," the man said dismissively. "I have her on semi-permanent mute."

"You -" John started, and then shook his head. There were higher priorities on his list. "Never mind. How did you manage to set fire to spaghetti?"

"Rather easily, as a matter of fact," the man said, moving over to the stove and removing the blanket from the saucepan. John felt his body tense instantly, but the fire was well and truly gone now. There were no signs of the flames that had been there moments before; there were just sticks of spaghetti with blackened ends. The man examined the spaghetti closely, though John did not know why he bothered, given he was fairly sure that flaming spaghetti was not salvable.

"Did you know that dry spaghetti is flammable?" the man asked.

"No, I did not," John said, "because I have never put dry spaghetti close enough to an open flame to make that discovery. And, while you're cooking spaghetti, you shouldn't be putting it close enough to the flame for it to catch fire." He paused for a moment, and then asked, "Did you try to set it on fire on purpose?"

"Of course not. Why would I do that?"

"I have absolutely no idea, but this whole situation seems a lot more believable if you had actively tried to put the spaghetti next to the fire. I don't see how you could have put it in the saucepan with the intention of cooking it and still manage to mess it up this badly."

"Clearly, it's completely possible."

"Possible, yes, I'm sure, but surely it's a bit difficult to do accidentally."

"So you think I got out of bed at three o'clock in the morning to see how flammable dry spaghetti sticks are?" the man said, rolling his eyes as though that was the most idiotic idea he had ever heard. "Don't be ridiculous."

"I'm being ridiculous?" John repeated. "You're the one who set fire to spaghetti!"

The man stared at him for a moment, his expression blank, and then he pursed his lips together, and suddenly, John realised how hysterically funny the whole situation was. He tried to bite back a laugh, but it bubbled up from his throat before he could stop it, and once it was out he couldn't help himself. He hunched over and put his hands on his knees, his stomach heaving with laughter.

"What's so funny?" the man asked, in such an affronted tone that it made the situation just that much funnier."

"You -" John started, and then he trailed off again into giggles. He covered his mouth with his hand, taking a moment to compose himself, and then he started again. "You set fire to spaghetti. First time I've ever seen you leave your room, and you set fire to spaghetti."

"I've left my room plenty of times," the man said, and John shook his head, pursing his lips to stop himself from laughing once more.

"Not when I'm around, you haven't. Is that intentional, by the way? I was beginning to think you were avoiding me."

The man made a dismissive hand gesture. "You have a day job, I work best at night. It's no surprise our paths haven't crossed until now."

"It's a bit of a surprise. I mean, even if you work at night and I work during the day, it's been a week. Surely our schedules would have overlapped at some point, even just for a minute or two."

"I work best when I'm not surrounded by people who could distract me."

John pondered that for a moment. "So you have been avoiding me intentionally. To avoid distractions."

The man looked off to the side. "Somewhat," he said, but then, at John's change in facial expression, he said, "Oh, don't be like that. I avoid practically everyone."

"But you could have at least come and introduced yourself."

The man shrugged. "If I didn't expect myself to run into you any time soon, why would I have reason to introduce myself to you?"

"Because I'm your flatmate and we'd have to run into each other eventually?"

"Then, obviously, I'd have introduced myself when it became necessary – that is, when I did, eventually, run into you. And so, on that note," – he extended his hand – "I'm Sherlock Holmes."

It was an odd situation for an introduction, but it was an introduction, which was more than John had been expecting at that point. So, John reached out and clasped the man's hand. "John Watson," he greeted. He glanced over at the saucepan, and then asked, "Do you normally cook spaghetti at three o'clock in the morning, or is that just because you've been trying so hard to avoid me?"

Sherlock shook his head. "I don't normally cook at all," he said, and John suppressed a grin – given the state of the man's spaghetti, 'not normally' cooking probably meant 'I've never cooked anything before in my life'.

"Okay," John said, once he was sure he wasn't going to laugh again. "Why now, then? At three o'clock in the morning, specifically."

"I was hungry. I felt this was my only option."

"Clearly, you are not well-educated in the land of twenty-four hour food places."

"And you are?"

"I spent eight years studying to become a doctor. During exam period, very few people manage to have food at regular hours. I basically lived off twenty-four hour pizza." He glanced at the clock, told himself that three o'clock in the morning was not a good time to eat fatty foods, and then decided that he didn't care. "Speaking of pizza," he continued, "fancy any?"

"Love some."

OoO

John's first meeting with his potentially vampiric flatmate ended with them sharing a box of pizza at three o'clock in the morning.

All in all, it was probably the best way they could have met.


	10. Five Times John Tried to Make Him Laugh

**Author's Note:** The last 5+1 I wrote ended up being my most popular fic in this series. So, I thought it might be worth writing another one. If you'd like to see more of these, absolutely leave a comment (or a prompt!)

A million thanks to Becca (Ao3's LlamaWithAPen) for being a brilliant beta.

* * *

Prompt from metaphoricalbutton's "Opposites attract AU prompts" post: _the class clown tries to get the pretentious, stoic know-it-all to laugh au_

 **Five Times John Tried to Make Sherlock Laugh...**

 _One_.

"Honey, I love you, won't you give me a smile?"

Sherlock bit back a groan, raising his book to block his view of the giggling students on the other side of the courtyard. This stupid game was the latest craze, for God only knew what reason. Some student had learnt it in an extracurricular drama class, and he had taught it to his friends, who had taught it to their friends, and suddenly, it felt like everyone was playing it. It was an acting game, to learn to keep composure if something funny happened on stage, but it had spread to even the least theatre-inclined students in the school.

The rules were simple: if you are 'in', your task is to make someone laugh, by saying the words, "Honey, I love you, won't you give me a smile?" in the funniest way that you can manage. If you succeed, then you swap places, and the person who had laughed is then 'in'. If, however, the person manages to keep a straight face and reply with, "Honey, I love you, but I just can't smile," then they win, and you had to find a new victim.

It was repetitive, tedious, and dull, and Sherlock could not understand why it had become so popular. Yet, everyone was playing it, and it was impossible to find somewhere quiet.

Normally, he would hide out in an empty classroom, or in the library, because he worked best away from distractions. However, the school thought it was a good idea to enforce one hour a week where, weather permitting, students were forced "encouraged" to go outside and get some sun. Which meant that, for one hour a week, the library was shut, and the classrooms were locked, and Sherlock was forced to step out into the light and – heavens forbid – be around people.

Sherlock had chosen one of the smallest courtyards on campus. Surely, he had thought, a smaller area would mean that there would be fewer people. It was a far preferable choice to somewhere like the field, which would not only be loud and crowded but would also hold a very real risk of a soccer ball smacking into Sherlock's head. However, the courtyard still had people in it – only a small number of them, yes, but those few people were playing that particular game, and Sherlock was very quickly tiring of hearing the same two sentences, repeated over and over, in various accents and tones of voice. Plus, it was made all the worse that the same girl had been in for a few rounds now, which meant that there wasn't even variety in the way the words were being spoken.

When yet another person responded with a straight face, the girl – Molly Hooper, who Sherlock recognised from his biology class – let out a loud sigh. "I give up," she said. "I can't do it, I've tried all of you now. Someone needs to swap with me."

"You haven't tried _everyone_ ," said another girl in the group, before dropping her tone to a whisper that was not as quiet as it could have been. "You haven't tried Sherlock."

Even with his view partially occluded by the book in his hands, Sherlock could see the way Molly's face had turned red. "No!" she exclaimed, glancing in Sherlock's direction and then very quickly looking away after a split second of eye contact. "He's not playing, he doesn't count. Besides, I don't think anyone could make him laugh."

Sherlock hoped that that would be the last of his inclusion in their conversation.

It was not.

The next thing that someone said was, "Bet you John could."

Sherlock had never had a proper conversation with John Watson, but he certainly knew of him. They shared a number of classes; John was captain of the rugby team, and self-proclaimed class clown. He was popular and likeable and easy to get along with – everything Sherlock wasn't. Sherlock did not think he was as much of an imbecile as some of his other classmates, but he had never felt an overwhelming desire to get to know him.

If the girl's words became anything more than a passing comment, then Sherlock might just be about to.

Fortunately, it was John himself who spoke up next, shaking his head. "Come on, leave him alone. I imagine he wants to read his book in peace, not get roped into playing with us." He caught Sherlock's eye for a moment and gave him a reassuring smile.

Unfortunately, John's friends did not seem to share the same attitude.

"Maybe he's sitting over there secretly hoping that we'll drag him into our game," said one of the girls.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "I'm secretly hoping that you will all decide to leave the courtyard," he said. "Or at very least that you'll choose a game that is quieter and does not involve nearly as much squealing."

The small group turned to face him as he spoke. Molly looked flustered, John looked amused, and one of the other boys – Mike Stamford, also from Sherlock's biology class – looked… conspiring?

"Come on, Sherlock, give it a shot," Mike said.

"I think I'll pass," Sherlock replied.

"One round," Mike said. "And if you win, we'll play somewhere else."

Sherlock glanced up at that. That sounded like a perfectly good deal to him – he would have the courtyard to himself. The rest of Mike's group seemed to accept the terms of the deal. Perhaps they didn't realise how hard it was to make Sherlock laugh. Maybe they were still holding onto the belief that one of them would end up victorious.

Sherlock took note of the page he was on, and then closed his book, getting to his feet. "All right," he said.

Mike grinned, and he glanced over at John. "Would you like to do the honours?"

"Well, if I must," John said, although he did not sound at all disappointed. He took a step forward, looking relaxed, confident. Of course, why wouldn't he? He was the self-proclaimed class clown; a game that involved making someone laugh would have been like second nature to him. Pity, Sherlock thought. It would just be more embarrassing when he lost.

John did not start with the words His first move was to take off his jumper, swing it around in one hand, and then toss it off to the side, striking a pose as he did as though he belonged in some sort of bad 80s movie. The jumper in question landed straight on the head of one of the girls in his group, who found it hysterically funny and was immediately in fits of laughter.

Sherlock did not even smile.

John walked forward slowly, his movements half flirtatious and half ridiculous. Sherlock couldn't say for certain if that was because he was trying to make Sherlock laugh, or if it was because John could not flirt for the life of him. Behind John, his group of friends were laughing, covering their mouths with their hands as though they were trying – and failing – to suppress it. Sherlock couldn't see why. John was trying to be funny, but it wasn't _that_ funny.

When John came to a stop in front of Sherlock, he immediately dropped to one knee, bowing his head as though he had just met the Queen. He looked up at Sherlock after a moment, cracking a grin before he started to speak.

"Honey," he began, and he had put on the most ridiculous voice – something high and squeaky that instantly had everyone else in his group in fits of laughter. Everyone except Sherlock, of course.

John continued, "I love you. Won't you please, please, _please_ give me a smile?"

Judging by the way John's friends were doubled over in laughter, if John had chosen anyone else as a target, he would have won.

Sherlock was not quite so easy to amuse. He folded his hands behind his back, and he said, with a straight face and a neutral, bordering on monotonous voice, "Honey, I love you, but I just can't smile."

Someone in John's group of friends made an "Ooooooh!" sound in between their laughter, and a couple of them clapped. Sherlock, for the most part, tuned them out, instead focussing on John. There was an amused smile on John's face, coupled with an expression that made it seem like John was impressed.

"Damn," he said as he got back to his feet. "You are good. You really should play with us – you could be our undefeated champion."

"Thrilling, but I think I'll pass," Sherlock said. He reached down to pick up his book again, and said, "Now, I believe you were leaving."

John's lips quirked upwards, and he turned to his group of friends. "Come on, guys, we did promise," he said, and he gestured to the gates at the exit. Behind him, his group of friends gathered up their things, making their way out of the courtyard, finally to leave Sherlock in peace.

Before Sherlock returned to his book, however, John turned back to face him. "I'll make you laugh," he said.

"I believe we just demonstrated that you couldn't."

John shook his head. "That was just one attempt. I'll manage, you just wait."

 _Two_.

John's mission to make Sherlock laugh started the next morning, in their biology class. As usual, Sherlock got in early enough to choose a seat at the back, away from everyone. As usual, the next bunch of people who filed inside chose seats further away from him, because everyone knew that Sherlock was not to be sat next to unless you were willing to deal with the possibility of being insulted. However, when John entered the classroom, he did not take a seat near the front, closer to his other friends, as he usually would. Instead, he walked straight to the seat next to Sherlock, grabbed the chair, swung it around, and sat on it backwards, facing Sherlock. He leaned his forearms on the back of the chair, and just stared at Sherlock until Sherlock had no choice but to turn to him.

"Can I help you?" Sherlock asked.

"I have a joke," John said.

"Good for you. Do I have to hear it?"

"Yes. And you're going to find it hilarious and you're going to laugh."

"Is that an order?"

A grin grew over John's face at that, though he didn't respond. Instead, he just said, "All right, you ready?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"Nope!" said John, in a cheerily tone of voice. "All right. So there's this guy, yeah? And this guy decides he's going to take his girlfriend to the prom."

"Yes, I imagine that one often chooses to take one's own romantic partner to such an event."

"Shh, you're ruining the mood. So, he's going to the prom, but there's lots of preparations. So, first he needs to get his suit tailored. So, he goes to the tailor, and there's a super long line, but he waits patiently and eventually he gets his suit tailored and he goes home."

Sherlock lets out a long-suffering sigh, which John ignores.

"Next," John continues," he goes to buy a corsage for his girlfriend, so he goes to the florist. And again, there's a super long line, but he waits, and he waits, and eventually, he buys a beautiful corsage that matches his girlfriend's dress."

"Marvellous, he can colour code," Sherlock drawled.

"I'm not done yet. So, it gets to the night of the prom -"

"A thrilling turn of events."

"Shut up, you're ruining it. It gets to the night of the prom, and he and his girlfriend are there, and they're dancing, and they're laughing, and they're just generally having a great time. And then his girlfriend decides she wants some punch, and so he offers to go get some. So, he waltzes on up to the punch table, and there's no punch line."

Sherlock blinks.

John grins, as though he's expecting the joke to click at any moment.

If this were a cartoon, crickets might have chirped.

"Oh, come on," John said after a long enough silence. "That was funny."

"Was it? I didn't notice."

"You have no sense of humour, clearly."

"I have a sense of humour," Sherlock argued. "It just requires things of a higher standard to make me laugh. I don't see the humour in stupid jokes like that. I certainly hope it wasn't the best you could come up with."

"It wasn't," John replied, standing as the teacher entered the room so he could turn his chair around to face the front again. "I'm just getting warmed up."

 _Three_.

Their next biology class together was two days later. Once again, Sherlock chose his favourite seat in the back corner of the room. The seat beside him ended up taken a moment later by another girl – not one who wanted to sit next to Sherlock, he deduced as he glanced at her, but one who was fighting with her two friends and had taken a seat as far away from them as she could manage. The seat directly in front of Sherlock, however, was vacant when John came in, and this was the seat that John chose.

John did not speak to Sherlock at the start of class, instead paying attention to the teacher as she spoke. Sherlock thought that, perhaps, it meant he had chosen the seat near Sherlock by chance and it did not mean that he was continuing with his ploy to get a laugh out of Sherlock. He discovered that he was wrong as soon as they were given their worksheets.

Some of the other people in Sherlock's class were working together, which meant that the classroom was not silent. John took advantage of this, leaning back on the back legs of his chair. He turned his upper body in the seat and put one hand on Sherlock's desk to support himself.

"You're clever," John stated.

Sherlock raised one eyebrow. "Brilliant observation."

"You thought my last joke was too stupid for your liking. Which, might I add, just means _you're_ stupid, because that joke was fantastic, but we'll move on. You need clever jokes to make you laugh."

"Is there such a thing?"

"Yes, actually. I Googled it last night."

"My, aren't you dedicated."

Sherlock intended it sarcastically, but John grinned nonetheless. "I am, actually. So, I've found some clever jokes for you. You'll like these. Ready?"

"Am I getting a choice?"

"Absolutely not," John replied. He turned around for a moment before he resumed his position in the chair, and Sherlock saw that he had grabbed his phone, and was holding it in his lap, out of view of the teacher.

"You have them on your phone?" Sherlock asked. "Maybe you're not all that dedicated, if you didn't even bother to memorise them."

"Excuse you," said John. "I am incredibly dedicated to the cause."

"The cause?"

"The cause of making poor, miserable souls like yourself laugh. It's a very good cause."

Sherlock rolled his eyes.

John continued, "And I did actually memorise some of them. I'm just making sure I get this perfectly. Now, what's the difference between ignorance and apathy?"

There was an expectant pause, and after a moment, Sherlock frowned. "Are you expecting me to answer that?"

"God, you make telling jokes difficult. You're supposed to prompt me."

"Am I, now?"

"Yes. I ask you the question, and you said, 'I don't know, John, do please tell me'."

"I'm fairly certain jokes aren't usually quite so scripted on the behalf of the listener."

"Well, _usually_ the listener knows that they have to prompt the joke-teller, but clearly you need a bit of extra guidance. So, come on, let's try this again. What's the difference between ignorance and apathy?"

Sherlock let the silence stretch out for a moment, before giving into John's glare. "I don't know, John, please tell me," he said, rolling his eyes as he spoke to make sure that John didn't think he was being in any way sincere.

John replied, "I don't know, and I don't care."

Sherlock didn't laugh. After a moment, he asked, "Is that the funniest 'clever' joke you could find."

"No," John replied quickly. "That's just one from the list. One of these is going to make you laugh."

"Not likely."

"Shut up. What do you get when you cross a joke with a rhetorical question?"

It took Sherlock a second to realise that John was not waiting for a prompt for that one: the joke was that there was no answer. He rolled his eyes.

John scrolled through the list on his phone for a second before deciding on another one. "I tried walking up a hill without a watch, but I had neither the time nor the inclination."

"Do you understand these jokes," Sherlock asked, "or are they too clever for you?"

"Rude," said John. He scrolled through the list for a moment, his gaze flickering between Sherlock and his phone. "There's got to be something you find funny. Everyone laughs occasionally. Even you, Mr Ice King."

"Ice King? That's a new one."

John opened his mouth, either to respond to that or to read out a new joke, but, much to Sherlock's relief, it was at that point that the bell rang, signalling the end of class. Sherlock leaned over to the pile of his belongings on the floor and lifted them onto the desk so he could pack up.

"Well," he said, "this has been thrilling."

"I'll find something to make you laugh eventually," John said.

"Eventually," Sherlock replied, "you'll realise you can't, and you'll give up."

"I think I'm a tad more determined than you give me credit for."

"You're certainly stubborn, I'll give you that much." Sherlock got to his feet, stepping past John's desk. "Enjoy your jokes," he said as he joined the crowd of students who were pushing and shoving their way to the door (as though they wouldn't get outside if they didn't get to the door first).

Behind him, he heard John yell, "Schrodinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't!"

 _Four_.

John did not bombard Sherlock with any more jokes their next biology lesson, even when everyone else started talking amongst themselves. Sherlock concluded that it meant that he was safe, that John had realised – just as Sherlock had expected him to – that his mission was futile. Things could finally go back to the way they were, with Sherlock sitting quietly in classes and not talking to anyone.

As it turned out, John had not given up. John had just come up with a new method. (One that was equally unsuccessful, of course).

It happened during the lunch hour that they were forced to spend outside. Sherlock had left his classroom, and was searching for somewhere quiet where he could sit, without being subject to another game of Honey, I Love You, and without the risk of a ball being thrown at his head.

Sherlock normally put the world around him on mute when he wanted to focus, but on this particular occasion, because he was searching for somewhere quiet, it was necessary to turn the volume of the world up. How could he find somewhere quiet to sit if he was ignoring the things that made noise?

He was aware of the giggled conversation of the two girls who walked past him in the opposite direction (discussing a particular boy who had started showing interest in one of their friends), of the sound of a ball being bounced by the boy a few feet in front of him (on his way to the oval to play with his friends), and the rustle of paper on one of the nearby benches (a student with an exam in a few hours, desperately cramming). So, when he heard the sound of footsteps behind him, starting out slow and then getting faster, he knew that someone was creeping up on him.

He pretended not to notice, at first. He didn't break his stride, and continued to walk at the same pace. Then, he heard the footsteps behind him change, no longer the sound of walking but instead the sound of two feet being prepared to take off from the ground, followed by something not unlike a battle cry.

Sherlock timed it perfectly. He took a step to the side at just the right moment, and the person who had leapt from behind – John, of course – landed first on two feet in the place Sherlock had been a moment earlier, though he immediately lost his footing and fell backwards, straight onto his bottom.

John's friends, who had been with him, immediately burst into laughter. Naturally, Sherlock did not. He simply turned to look at John, very briefly assessing him for any sign of an injury worse than a bruise on his behind, and when he had concluded that John was virtually unharmed, he raised his eyebrows.

"I thought the idea was to make me laugh," Sherlock said, "not to startle me."

"It was," John replied, getting to his feet carefully and dusting himself off (but not before shooting a glare at the two friends who were stifling laughter behind him). "People laugh when they've been startled. The jokes weren't working for you, so I knew I needed something else."

"Yes, well, your 'something else' seems to be equally ineffective and has just resulted in you hurting yourself."

"All part of the plan," John said. "It's slapstick. People falling over is funny. I did it intentionally."

"No, you didn't."

"No, I didn't," John conceded. "But it's still funny."

"Hardly."

"Well, my friends think it was."

"Small things amuse small minds."

John's lips quirked upwards into a slight smile, and he glanced over his shoulder at his friends. Sherlock did the same, to see if they had picked up on the insult, though if they had, they did not look like they were about to do anything about it. Perhaps John's interest in making Sherlock laugh protected him from the potential of being punched for something he said.

"So," John said, when he turned back to Sherlock. "You don't like jokes, and you don't like people falling over. What _do_ you like?"

"If I told you, then it would be giving you an advantage," Sherlock said.

John's face immediately broke into a grin. "That means there _is_ something."

"Not necessarily."

They reached an intersection, and turned to go in opposite directions, but then John turned back upon realising that Sherlock was no longer walking alongside him. "I'll work it out, Sherlock. I will."

"Whatever helps you sleep at night," Sherlock replied, and then they turned down their respective paths.

 _Five_.

Sherlock had come to the conclusion that John was becoming increasingly desperate.

His attempts at making Sherlock laugh, if anything, were becoming less and less well thought out. The jokes that John had come up with when this had all begun were not as funny as John seemed to believe, but at least it meant that he had gone to the effort of searching for jokes, preparing for the moment when he would use them.

Today, John's attempt to make Sherlock laugh was to make funny faces at Sherlock from the front of the class.

Sherlock had not noticed, at first – not because he'd been too busy paying attention to the teacher, of course, but because he had let his mind wander, his gaze somewhere off in the distance and his attention nowhere near the classroom.

Eventually, however, Sherlock realised that John had been staring at him. When Sherlock glanced over, he saw that John had a wide-eyed look on his face, and he was not blinking (or, he was blinking very infrequently). Sherlock had no way of knowing how long John had been looking at him like that for.

When John realised that he had Sherlock's attention, he opened his mouth and crossed his eyes, and Sherlock realised at this point that John was not staring at him for any reason other than the fact that he had been trying to get Sherlock's attention. Now that he had it, he was taking full advantage. A few seconds later, he changed his expression, puffing out his cheeks like a chipmunk and scrunching up his nose. The entire sight was made even funnier by the way John's cheeks turned red with the effort.

Sherlock kept the smile off his face, and responded by raising his eyebrows.

John's facial expressions changed every few seconds, after that. He stuck out his jaw and pressed his bottom row of teeth to his top lip. He opened his mouth wide like a clown and crossed his eyes. He tilted his head to the side and stared as though he were a possessed child.

Sherlock responded to each new 'funny face' with a more subtle change in his own expression. He did not smile, but he raised his eyebrows, or narrowed his eyes, or gave John looks that said 'Did you really think that would work?'

John did not seem deterred. He stuck out his tongue, scrunched up his nose, stretched his mouth into odd shapes. He was determined to make Sherlock laugh; nothing was going to make him give up.

Well, nothing except...

" _Mr_ Watson."

John started in surprise as their biology teacher addressed him, a sheepish smile coming over his face. "Yes, ma'am?" he said innocently.

"Are you having a stroke?"

"Not that I'm aware of."

"Then you have no excuse for making faces in my class."

"I can't help it," John replied. "I'm just _so_ interested in everything I'm learning, I can't keep it off my face."

One of the girls sitting next to John giggled, though the teacher did not look amused. "Nice try," she said. "If you can't keep your interest off your face, then, at least keep your face towards the front of the class."

"Yes, ma'am," John said, and he turned back to the front of the class. When the teacher turned to the whiteboard, however, John glanced over his shoulder at Sherlock, glaring as though Sherlock was the one to blame. Sherlock responded with an innocent look and a shrug of his shoulders.

John turned back to the front of the class before the teacher looked at him again. He didn't see the flicker of a smirk pull over the corner of Sherlock's lips.

 **And the one time he did...**

On Friday afternoon, Sherlock gathered his books from his locker, closed the door, turned around, and found himself face to face with John.

John was not making funny faces this time. He also did not immediately start with a joke. Instead, he held up a DVD box so that Sherlock could see the title: _Star Trek_.

Sherlock looked down at the box, and then back to John. "Is that supposed to make me laugh?" he asked.

"Not the box alone, no," John said, putting it back in his bag. "It's not a comedy, exactly, but I thought about it and I figure typical comedies won't work for you. You'll probably find all the jokes stupid. But, this one has some laughs in it, and I'm pretty sure you're the real-life version of Spock, so maybe it'll work."

Sherlock raised his eyebrows.

John continued, "If you've got plans, we can reschedule, but it's a Friday night and I know you tend to stay back at school late to use the labs, so I figure you probably don't have other commitments." He paused, and then added, "Unless you're committed to staying back and using the labs, but I know we don't have anything due for bio or chem any time soon, so you're all right with missing one night, aren't you?"

"You're inviting me over for a movie night," Sherlock stated, as though he were trying to make sense of the conversation.

"Well, yeah?" John said. "I mean, if _Star Trek_ can't make you laugh, then I might as well admit defeat."

Sherlock shook his head. "No, I mean... you're inviting me over, because you're so stubborn and you're insisting on making me laugh."

John frowned, perhaps not sure if there was a question in there somewhere. "Um... yes?"

Sherlock stared. People didn't invite him over for movie nights. People didn't invite him over at all. He wasn't the sort of person who socialised, and he most definitely was not the sort of person that other people wanted to socialise with. The last time Sherlock had watched a movie, he'd been a child, and that was with his nanny (and if he had been given the choice, he would have chosen to do something else).

John continued after a moment, "If you're not interested, it's fine. But, I figure this is my last hope, and what can I say, I'm desperate." He paused for a moment, and then added, "If this doesn't work, I'll stop trying. You can consider yourself the unbeatable Ice King."

Sherlock considered it for a moment. The way he saw it, he had nothing to lose.

So, he shrugged his shoulders. "Why not?" he said, and John's face lit up.

OoO

John's house was walking distance from the school. It didn't take them long to get there.

It was not in the richest part of town, and it certainly was not the biggest house that Sherlock had ever seen. He wouldn't have expected it to be, of course; it was easy to tell from John's choice of clothing that money was tight. He might not have been poor, exactly, but he did not have the kind of money to go spend on whatever he pleased.

The house struck Sherlock as quaint, though he did not comment on it.

"My dad's at work, so he won't be home until late," John said, as he unlocked the door. "And I convinced Harry to go over to her friend's place tonight, so we can have the living room. Otherwise we'd have had to watch it on my laptop and you just wouldn't have gotten the full effect, you know?"

"You convinced your sister to visit her friend? You certainly were confident that I'd say yes."

John shrugged. "If you had said no, it just would have meant I got the house to myself. Besides, she and Clara have been planning a sleepover for ages. She was happy for the excuse."

He led the way into the living room, and Sherlock took it in. It was small, sort of cosy. There were two sofas, set up in front of the television screen, and a bookshelf in the corner. All the spines were cracked; the books there were clearly loved. The room joined onto the kitchen – there was no door to block the view from one to the other – and John tossed his bag carelessly onto the sofa before heading into the kitchen.

"Do you fancy a tea?" he called over his shoulder.

Sherlock shook his head. "No, I'm fine," he said, moving over to the sofa but not sitting down. He put his bag down – more carefully – next to John's.

He could hear the sounds of John filling the kettle with water in the kitchen and putting it on the stove. When John looked over the counter to the living room, and saw that Sherlock was still standing, he cracked a smile. "You can sit, you know," he said. "Haven't you ever been to someone's house before?"

Sherlock sat on the sofa and chose not to answer that.

It took John a few minutes to get himself organised, but when he returned to the living room he had in his hands two cups of tea. Sherlock frowned at them.

"I said I didn't want one," he said.

"I know," John replied. "But you also didn't sit down until I gave you permission, so maybe you're being polite. And if not, then I'll drink yours too. I like tea."

He placed the two cups down on the coffee table and then went to put the DVD into the player. Sherlock stared at the cup that John had left in front of him for a moment, before lifting it up and taking a sip. That was better than letting it go to waste, wasn't it?

John set up the DVD, and then he sat down on the sofa next to Sherlock. "You know," he said, "it truly is a crime that you haven't seen these."

"I think there are far worse crimes than having not watched a movie," Sherlock said.

"This isn't just a movie," John said. "This is _Star Trek_ , and there are no greater crimes than having not watched it. You need this movie in your life."

"I've managed living without it just fine."

"You just don't know what you're missing," John said, but before Sherlock had a chance to respond he said, "Shh, it's starting. You need to watch this scene. You will cry."

"I thought the point of this was to make me laugh."

"The laughter comes _after_ the bit that'll make you cry. Now shh, you'll miss it."

They lapsed into silence, watching as the movie began – complete with spaceships and explosions and the typical dead parent backstory that was necessary for any good protagonist. John, despite undoubtedly having seen this movie several times, looked as though all of his attention was on it. Sherlock even thought he saw John's eyes water just a little at the beginning, but it could have just been a trick of the light.

Sherlock didn't really see what the fuss was about. It did not strike him as a completely idiotic movie, no, but it certainly did not need absolutely all of his attention in order to be followed. He tried to pull his phone out of his pocket at several points, so that he could browse the internet while he watched – he was more than capable of multi-tasking. Every time he did, however, John glared at him, threatening to confiscate the phone, telling Sherlock that he wouldn't get "the full _Star Trek_ experience" otherwise.

So, Sherlock watched. He could see why John had thought it might have made him laugh, admittedly. It was not a comedy by any definition, but the interactions between the characters were amusing. They were snarky and sarcastic and occasionally clashed heads, and their behaviours were interesting to watch. One young Russian character seemed to make John smile every time he was on screen, and Sherlock could acknowledge that there was something endearing about his behaviours. A lot of the dialogue between the characters was also amusing. John even laughed aloud a couple of times, but Sherlock kept a straight face.

Sherlock did take a liking to one particular character, who struck him as the most intelligent on the ship. He expressed this liking to John at one point, when that character in question, on screen, said, "If you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

Sherlock said, "Well, at least someone on this ship is intelligent."

John's face broke into a grin. "I _told_ you you were just like Spock," he said. "We just need to give you pointy ears, and you'd basically be the real-life version."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "I'd accept the idea that we have similar intellects – he doesn't seem to be a complete imbecile – but I do not look like him, and I would still not look like him with pointy ears."

"No, you probably wouldn't," John said. "Although, you do look just like the bad guy in the next one, Khan. He could be your evil twin brother or something."

"I can't believe that," Sherlock said.

John snickered, covering his mouth to bite back a laugh. Sherlock frowned, running back over the last thing that happened on screen to try to work out what John had found so amusing, but it wasn't a funny moment. So, after a pause, Sherlock frowned and asked, "What?"

John pulled his hand away from his mouth, a grin on his face. "You," he started, cut himself off with a snicker, and then tried again. "You _Khan't_ believe that."

It was the stupidest pun that Sherlock had ever heard in his life. In and of itself, it was not funny. However, John seemed to think it was hilarious, and suddenly he was in fits of laughter. That sight alone was funnier than the joke itself, and Sherlock couldn't stop himself; laughter bubbled up from his throat. The sound only spurred John on.

"All this time," John gasped between giggles, "looking for clever jokes, and all it took was a stupid pun."

"It wasn't the pun," Sherlock said, taking a breath to stop himself from laughing, while the smile stayed on his face. "It was just your reaction to it."

"I told you I'd make you laugh in the end, didn't I?"

"I think _I_ made _you_ laugh," Sherlock corrected.

"Ah, but I was never the one trying to keep a straight face."

"What's your point?"

"My point," John said, "is that I win. And for my prize, you're now going to have to watch the next movie with me. So I can show you who Khan is."

"Ridiculous," Sherlock said, but he hid a ghost of a smile behind his cup of tea.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** A couple of facts about a couple of these sections:

1) The game _Honey, I Love You_ was taught to me at a youth group I went to once upon a time. John's actions are very closely based on the actions of a boy at that youth group who attempted to make me laugh. Let it be known that I remain to be the undefeated queen of _Honey, I Love You_.

2) The final section, originally, I had different plans for. However, the day I wrote the first draft of it was the day that I discovered that Anton Yelchin, who plays Chekov in the new _Star Trek_ movies, had died. It hit me hard, and writing has always been my coping mechanism. I wasn't in the state to write a proper _Star Trek_ fic at that point, so it seemed like the right thing to do to incorporate the films into this one. My heart goes out to all of Yelchin's family and friends. I can't imagine how hard the past several months must have been.


	11. Explosive

**Author's Note:** I owe Becca (LlamaWithAPen) a thank you for both beta-ing this chapter and also giving me the idea behind it. I apologise for any mistakes or glaring inaccuracies - unfortunately, John's areas of expertise are not ones I share.

* * *

Prompt from user Cyn.2K: _How about a case where John is more knowledgeable than Sherlock on key aspects of the case – could be cultural, language, military?_

 **Explosive**

It began, as everything did, with a big bang.

The explosion in question occurred at a small block of flats on the corner of two streets. It was miles away from Scotland Yard, too far to be heard, but news like this travels fast.

Detective Inspector Lestrade had been in his office when the word reached him, courtesy of one of his subordinates. Bombs were not their division – the Detective Inspector was in charge of the homicide department – but this was the kind of thing that could not be kept to one unit. If a bomb went off, then everyone needed to know. They needed all hands on deck until they worked out who was responsible, or at least until they worked out if that bomb was the only one.

Sherlock Holmes had been with Lestrade when the news reached him. The consulting detective had been in the office for the past ten minutes, ranting on about how he needed access to older case files, and that he needed to be informed of any of the more recent cases. When the subordinate came in to give the news, Sherlock cut his sentence off halfway through, and he glanced at Lestrade for only another second or two, before turning on his heels and heading for the door.

"Sherlock!" said Lestrade, getting to his feet.

"It's him, Lestrade!" Sherlock said, before the door fell shut behind him. "It has to be Moriarty."

And with that sentence, Lestrade had no choice but to follow.

Jim Moriarty had become something of an obsession to Sherlock. Moriarty had come into Sherlock's life – into all of their lives, really – a matter of months earlier, in the form of a pink phone delivered to Scotland Yard in an envelope addressed to Sherlock, and a pair of old sport shoes in the middle of a vacant flat. If everyone in the world had an evil counterpart, then Moriarty was the evil Sherlock. Where Sherlock was a consulting detective, solving crimes and putting criminals behind bars, Moriarty was a consulting criminal, helping people get away with the most heinous of crimes, helping criminals flee the country. Both Sherlock and Moriarty were more intelligent than the majority of the world, which was an excellent thing in Sherlock's case, because Scotland Yard could use his help to solve cases and do good, but in the case of Moriarty, it meant that people – many people – could get hurt.

For a matter of weeks, Moriarty had sent Sherlock 'puzzles', drawing his attention to cases that the police had solved years ago, making them realise they had made a mistake, or sometimes sending a clue that led Sherlock to a location where they would find a body, leaving Sherlock to work out what had happened. Each puzzle had a timer on it, a number of hours that Sherlock had to solve it. If he did not solve it before the timer ran out, then somewhere in London, a bomb went off, and someone – many someones – would die.

For those weeks, it felt as though Lestrade didn't have a moment to breathe, and that was nothing compared to the amount of time that Sherlock lost to the puzzles. Lestrade knew he wasn't sleeping or eating, doing the bare minimum needed to keep himself alive while he solved case after case after case. The spaces in between the puzzles weren't time for Sherlock to relax; they just left him antsy, waiting for something to happen, knowing that somewhere, someone was being abducted and strapped to a bomb vest in preparation for the next puzzle.

Then, all of a sudden, it had stopped. No more puzzles, no more threats, no more bombs. The pink phone that Moriarty had used for all communications with Sherlock was taken from Sherlock's flat, taken in the middle of the night on one of those rare moments when Sherlock let himself sleep (and Lestrade knew how much Sherlock had berated himself for it), and in its place was a note that read:

Til next time, darling  
JM xx

And that was that. Moriarty had disappeared without a trace, and ever since, Sherlock had been obsessed.

Sherlock had always had high standards, with cases. He had some sort of ranking system, of how interesting each case was. He had told Lestrade time and time again that he would not take cases that were not _interesting_ enough. After Moriarty, Sherlock's standards became even higher. Not only did cases have to be interesting; they had to have the potential of showing signs of Moriarty's involvement. Sherlock was searching for him in everything he investigated, and he even asked for access to cold case files so that he could search for Moriarty's involvement there. If Sherlock was on a case, and something else came up that he deemed more likely to lead him to Moriarty, Sherlock would drop everything.

He would see signs of Moriarty everywhere, even when Lestrade couldn't see anything. Lestrade had initially thought that that was because Sherlock had always been the more observant of the two of them, and because he had more information on Moriarty than Lestrade had. Now, Lestrade realised that it was because Sherlock was seeing what he wanted to see.

And one of these days, it was going to get him killed.

Lestrade hurried out of his office and to the elevator, hoping to catch Sherlock before he made it to the bottom, but it was to no avail. Sherlock was a whirlwind at the best of times. He had a bad habit of going off on his own – it was another thing on the list of things that would get him killed one day. By the time Lestrade had reached the bottom floor and stepped outside, there was no sign of Sherlock. Never mind the fact that a car would be infinitely more convenient than a cab, especially when the car had sirens on the roof to tell people to move out of the way – apparently, Sherlock believed that his best bet was to go off on his own.

(Lestrade hated nothing more than the fact that, despite the absence of sirens on a cab, Sherlock almost always got there first).

Lestrade climbed into the car, put on the sirens, and veered out into the street.

OoO

Sherlock did get there first, but only just.

Naturally, they weren't the first on scene. By the time they arrived, there was already a perimeter set up around what was once a block of flats. Ambulances were surrounding the remains of the building, paramedics putting the last few of the injured into stretchers to take them where they could be treated.

The block of flats was not a large one, and Lestrade hoped that that meant that there had been few people inside when the bomb went off, but either way, the destruction was tremendous. Lestrade had seen a lot of terrible things in his time as a detective, and for the most part, he had learnt to block it out, because you have no choice but to get used to it if you wanted to do your job. Sights like these, however, were sights that you could never quite get used to. Knowing that this had been a block of flats mere hours earlier, a block of flats that many people would have called home – it made it hard to look at the scene.

Lestrade found Sherlock standing in the middle of it all, turning in circles as though he was trying to take it all in. As Lestrade approached him, he noticed that Sherlock looked almost lost, standing there in the rubble. Sherlock usually did not see crime scenes like this. He saw crime scenes after homicides, with fewer victims, already dead; he did not see scenes of explosions with multiple victims, some on stretchers moaning in pain.

"Sherlock," said Lestrade, coming up behind the man, and his voice seemed to startle Sherlock only for a second before the lost look in his eyes faded, replaced with the calm, collected, and bordering on emotionless expression that Lestrade was much more familiar with.

"Remember the old woman in Glasgow?" Sherlock said, his voice hushed. Lestrade knew immediately who he was talking about. The old woman was one of Moriarty's victims; he had strapped her to an explosives vest and left her in an even bigger block of flats than this. Sherlock had solved the case, cracked the puzzle – she should have been let go. But she'd said something out of line, and Moriarty – or Moriarty's right-hand man – had pulled the trigger. Twelve people had died.

Sherlock had been in Lestrade's office, on the phone to the old woman, when the bomb went off. Lestrade remembered all too clearly the look on Sherlock's face.

Lestrade pushed the thought away. They needed to prioritise, focus on the present. "We don't know that it's him," he reminded Sherlock, looking around at the damage. "If it was Moriarty, wouldn't you have received a phone call first? Wasn't his entire aim to get your attention?"

"He didn't call me before the first explosion," Sherlock pointed out. "The one across the street from my flat. That was to get our attention, before anything else happened."

"He already has your attention, Sherlock. Why would he need to get it again?" When Sherlock didn't respond, Lestrade continued, "You're looking for him. Do you think maybe you're seeing him when he's not there?"

Sherlock didn't respond to that. Lestrade wished that it meant that he was getting through to Sherlock, but he knew better than to believe that anything he said could really change Sherlock's mind.

"There," Sherlock said suddenly, and Lestrade followed his gaze to the man that had caught Sherlock's attention. The only other people on the scene were medics, in uniform – and even then, most of those people had left the scene, now that most of the injured had been found – but this man was not in casual attire. He also looked perfectly unharmed, which made it clear that he could not have been close to the explosion. He should not have been allowed past the perimeter.

Sherlock moved before Lestrade could stop him. He made his way through the rubble, as quickly as he could manage on the uneven ground. He closed the gap between himself and the man, and he grabbed the man by the shoulder, yanking him around to face Sherlock.

"Who are you?" Sherlock demanded. "What are you doing here?"

The man's facial expression went from surprise to anger – at being rather rudely manhandled – but it faded quickly, and he held up his hands. "I'm no one. I'm just here to help."

Sherlock seemed unconvinced. "You're not a medic. How did you get on scene?"

"I was close enough to hear the bombs when they went off," the man says. "I got here before the perimeter was set up. They needed all the help they could get. I'm a doctor."

"What kind of person runs towards the sound of an explosion rather than away from it?"

"You mean, other than you?" the other man said, and then his gaze flickered over to Lestrade as the Detective Inspector got close enough. He saw the man's eyes drop to the badge on Lestrade's belt, and he clearly made the link between Lestrade and Sherlock, taking the hint to not say or do anything stupid. "John Watson. Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers. Three years in Afghanistan, a veteran of Kandahar, Helmond, and Bart's Hospital. I've seen worse than this."

Lestrade saw Sherlock's gaze slide down the man's body and back up again, in the way that it did whenever he was deducing someone – like some kind of x-ray machine that could see inside of you, see if you were lying. Apparently, Sherlock did not see any signs of untruthfulness, because the next thing he muttered was, "Ah, yes, of course."

The army doctor – John, as he had introduced himself – looked at the two of them for a moment, before something caught his attention. There was a noise, behind him – Lestrade only recognised after the man had moved that it was a groan of pain. He wouldn't have noticed the sound had the army doctor not drawn his attention to it. Clearly, John had better hearing – or, at least, he was more attentive to sounds like those, sounds of people. Lestrade watched as he moved through the rubble, and after a moment, he had located the source of the noise.

"Over here!" he yelled, raising a hand in the air and waving it around to catch the attention of the medics. After a beat, he looked over his shoulder to where he had left Lestrade and Sherlock, and he yelled, "Come help me get this off of him."

"Come on," Lestrade said, moving past Sherlock to the doctor's side. The man that John had located was almost completely covered by debris, pinned down by something heavy that might have once been a part of a wall. John reached down and hooked his hands under one side, nodding his head towards Lestrade to wordlessly instruct him to grab the other. Lestrade did, and to his surprise, Sherlock was there a moment later. Sherlock had never struck Lestrade as the sort of person to help the injured when there were more important things he could be doing, like analysing the scene. It was a relief to know that Sherlock was not that heartless.

"Here," John said to Sherlock. "Come grab this side, then I can pull him out when you lift it." He shuffled his hands across, and Sherlock, after a second, did as he was instructed, hooking his hands around the structure. "On three," John said when they were ready. "One, two, three."

They lifted, muscles straining against the weight, and once it was high enough, John released it so that he could rush to the man's side. He hooked his arms beneath the man's, and carefully dragged him out from underneath the fallen structure. Lestrade and Sherlock let it fall once he was safely out of the way.

The man that John pulled from the rubble was badly injured – he was burnt and bleeding, and those were just the injuries that were visible to Lestrade on the surface. However, he was breathing, which was something. One of John's hands moved over him, taking his pulse, checking for broken bones and any other severe injuries. With the other hand, he waved to get the attention of the medics. "You're okay," Lestrade could hear him saying, though he wasn't sure if that was because John's brief assessment told him that the man would heal, or if he was just saying that to keep the man calm. "You're going to be okay."

When the medics reached the small group, John stepped out of the way, letting them lift the injured man into the stretcher, and Lestrade turned to Sherlock. The consulting detective had already lost interest in the doctor, apparently having come to the conclusion that he was not behind the explosion and he was not an immediate threat. Already, Sherlock had turned away from the two of them and had crouched on the ground, examining the rubble.

"What are they going to call this one, Lestrade?" he muttered. "Another gas leak?"

Lestrade opened his mouth to respond, but someone else got there first.

"No."

Both Lestrade and Sherlock turned their heads towards the source of the voice – John – and Lestrade saw Sherlock's eyes narrow.

"Say that again," Sherlock said.

"No," the army doctor repeated. "It wasn't a gas leak. It doesn't look like a gas leak."

"How can you tell?"

"The injuries," John explained, glancing over his shoulder towards the paramedics. "Injuries from explosions go into four different categories. Tertiary injures are caused by people flying through the air with the force of the explosion and hitting something. Things like broken bones, bruises – even people losing limbs, with enough force. I can't say for certain, because I haven't examined anyone properly, but for the most part it looks like any of the broken bones and such are caused by something else falling onto the person, not the person flying at something themselves. That, and there's a lot more burn victims."

The army doctor had all of Sherlock's attention now. It was something of a rare sight. Suspects and witnesses got Sherlock's full attention for a few minutes, or seconds, until he decided that he had gathered all the relevant information and had dismissed them as useless. John was not a suspect, and he was not a witness, because he had not given any indication that he had seen the explosion or that he had seen anyone suspicious who could be responsible. He had only seen the aftermath, and the injuries, just as Sherlock had, and neither of them could be sure that John was a reliable source of information.

And yet, Sherlock was listening attentively, apparently taking in the information that he was offering. "What's your point?" Sherlock said.

"High explosive bombs – the kinds that could be mistaken for gas leaks – would involve a lot more tertiary injuries," John said. "They're the ones that detonate, and they cause a huge shock wave – anyone in the vicinity would quite literally be blown away. It would be less localised, too. The windows across the street should be blown in; there should be damage beyond the block of – well, what used to be the block of flats. The amount of burn victims here makes me think that this would have been caused by low explosives. They're simpler – probably homemade." He paused for a moment, looking around, and then he added, "For this amount of structural damage, though, you'd need a lot of them. Placed carefully in areas that could cause the most damage. They'd only have needed to take down the ground floor – if they did that, the rest of the building would crumble, and the force of that alone would do the rest of the damage."

Lestrade glanced at Sherlock out of the corner of his eye, half expecting the consulting detective to tell the doctor how stupid he was, as was the normal way that Sherlock spoke to people. Surprisingly, he did nothing of the sort. Lestrade lowered his tone, and said, "Not his style, is it?" Sherlock would know that he was talking about Moriarty. "His bombs weren't homemade. Made to look like a gas leak."

The doctor looked between them, not quite following their conversation, but then he focussed on Lestrade. "If the bombs were homemade, they were probably made in this building," he said. "It would have been hard for so many of them to be taken in and planted otherwise."

"And you think they would have to have been on the ground floor?" Sherlock said, dragging John's attention back to him and surprising Lestrade even more in his complete willingness to take this stranger's advice.

John nodded his head. "Easiest way to cause damage to a building like this," he said, and Sherlock turned sharply to Lestrade.

"I need a list of the names of anyone who was living in this building," he said. "Especially anyone with a room on the ground floor." When Lestrade didn't move after a second, he said, "Now, Lestrade. Go," and Lestrade knew better than to waste time in situations like these.

OoO

The next few hours were a whirlwind of action.

Lestrade accessed the records, checking the name of everyone who was currently renting one of the flats on the ground floor. He accessed credit card records, looking for any purchases that could have been used in the construction of a homemade bomb. No one immediately caught his attention, but Sherlock saw things a little differently. A man by the name of Evan Marshall caught his eye – the name rang a bell, he said, but he explained that he could not put a face to the name in his head. Still, Lestrade knew that any names that Sherlock had bothered storing in his mind were probably important, given he was pretty sure Sherlock had never bothered to store Lestrade's first name.

Marshall had not made any particularly suspicious purchases over the past several months, but he had withdrawn a significant amount of cash. It was done in infrequent amounts – a couple of hundred pounds here, a couple hundred there – and it would not have caught anyone's attention if they had not made the effort to look into him. Sherlock did a bit of digging, and the rest of the puzzle pieces fell into place.

Marshall's girlfriend, Louise Deverne, had lived in that very block of flats three years ago, and she had been murdered. Marshall had initially been a suspect, which was why Sherlock knew his name, but the murderer, as they later discovered, was actually another man by the name of Caleb Price. Price, as it turned out, had been stalking Louise for at least two months prior to her death. She had not known that Price himself was her stalker, but she had suspected that someone was watching her, following her. She had expressed security concerns to the landlord, who had been known to cut corners: she asked him to repair the broken security camera, and to make sure that the spare key to her room was kept locked away. He had not believed she was in any real danger, and so he had made no effort to spend the money that was needed to increase the security of the block of flats.

That made the motive obvious. Price had been arrested, but Marshall still resented the landlord, holding him responsible for Louise's death. It was more than just the landlord, too, because he would have also blamed Louise's neighbours, who, in his mind, had failed to go to her aid and had failed to protect her. He had moved into the block of flats a few months ago – his name had never been all over the papers, there was no reason why anyone would make the link between him and Louise – and he had set up the bombs.

It was the kind of crime that would destroy the evidence, and it would kill everyone who Marshall blamed. Until they had identified all the bodies, they would have no way of knowing for certain that Marshall was not in the explosion himself. By the time anyone realised what had happened, he would be long gone.

They found him at the airport, waiting to board a plane out of the country. He was prepared: he had a fake name, a fake passport, but he had gotten sentimental. He had used his late girlfriend's last name. They intercepted him before he could board, only just able to arrest him. Had they not known to check the owners of the ground floor flats, had they waited until they had been able to analyse the remaining fragments of the bomb, Marshall would have been long gone.

OoO

Lestrade had been interested in finding contact details for John Watson, so that he could thank him personally for his help on the case. As it turned out, he didn't need to. John had been interested enough in whether or not they had found the bomber that he came by Scotland Yard the next day. Lestrade told him the story.

"We wouldn't have found him in time, if it weren't for you," he concluded, once he had finished explaining that Marshall was in custody. "I wanted to thank you for that."

John shrugged his shoulders dismissively. "You were the one who found him. I just happened to point you in the right direction. I'm glad I could help, though."

"You did more than help," Lestrade began, and then someone outside his office caught his attention. He glanced past John's shoulder, and made a 'come in' motion towards the window. "And, actually, it wasn't me who found him, if we're getting technical. It was Sherlock."

The door to his office opened, and the person who Lestrade had seen outside – Sherlock, of course – stepped inside.

"Sherlock," Lestrade greeted, and he gestured towards the army doctor still standing in front of his desk. "You remember John."

Sherlock's gaze flickered over to the man in question for a second, before returning to Lestrade. "Obviously."

"I was just saying that you might want to thank him for his help on the case yesterday."

"Why would I want to thank him? It's hardly as though he did anything remarkable. He just happened to have some information that pointed us in the right direction."

"Sherlock," Lestrade scolded, and he opened his mouth to continue, to point out to Sherlock exactly how valuable the information that John had offered them had been, but then, to his surprise, Sherlock spoke.

He turned his head to look over to John, and said, "Thank you," with a single nod of his head. Coming from anyone else, it would be the most insincere thanks that had ever been given. From Sherlock, however, any thank you was a shock.

Of course, John didn't know Sherlock like Lestrade knew Sherlock, so he would have no way of knowing that Sherlock's apparently insincere thank you was not quite as insincere as it sounded. He just looked between Lestrade and Sherlock for a moment before finally saying, "You're welcome."

Sherlock immediately turned his attention back to Lestrade. "Donovan's on her way up," he said. "Serious expression on her face. I'd say you have a new case."

"And let me guess," Lestrade said. "You want in, as long as it ranks more than a seven."

"Eight," Sherlock corrected. "I'll wait outside."

He turned on his heels before anyone had the opportunity to say anything more, and he stepped back out the door, letting it fall shut behind him. Lestrade sighed, shaking his head, and then he looked over at the slightly confused expression on John's face. "He's always like that," he said, putting away the files that he had been going through earlier in preparation for Donovan's arrival. After a beat, he continued, "Look, I know he might seem like a bit of an insincere prick – and he is, to be honest – but the way he spoke to you yesterday was unusual. He's not often that polite to people."

"He was polite?" John asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Relative to how he usually is, yes. He didn't insult you to your face, and he actually listened to what you were saying. I don't think I've ever seen him pay that much attention to someone. I'm pretty sure he doesn't hear half the things I'm saying."

"And you still work with him?" John said.

"We need him, quite frankly. And he's a great man. Maybe one day, if we're very lucky, he might even be a good one."

He smiled wryly, and saw John smile a bit too, before the door opened and Sergeant Sally Donovan stuck her head inside.

"Sir," she began, "we've got –"

"A new case, I take it," Lestrade said, and she nodded.

"Double homicide. Doors locked from the inside, no signs of weapons on either of the bodies."

"Well," Lestrade said, glancing at John out of the corner of his eye. "I'm sure that's worth at least an eight."

John smiled a little. "I'll see myself out," he said, and he carefully stepped past Donovan to leave the room. Lestrade grabbed his own belongings and followed suit, following Donovan to the elevator while she listed off the details of the case that they currently knew.

John must have made it to the elevator before them, but when they reached the ground floor, Lestrade was surprised to discover that neither John, nor Sherlock, had left. They were standing by the front doors to the building, Sherlock watching John with an unusual sort of intensity, and Lestrade was able to catch the end of his sentence.

"—injuries, then. Violent deaths."

"Yes," John replied.

"Bit of trouble too, I bet."

"Of course. Enough for a lifetime. Far too much."

There was a moment of silence, Sherlock staring intently at John, before he asked, "Want to see some more?"

John's answer was instant. "Oh, God, yes."

And then they were stepping out the door, together. Lestrade glanced at Donovan out of the corner of his eyes, and when she said nothing, he pretended not to see. Bringing a civilian to a crime scene was not the best idea, but John might be someone who Sherlock Holmes could actually work with. Just this once, Lestrade could turn a blind eye and make an exception. Just this once.


	12. Busted

**Author's Note:** Well, I've done an awful job of sticking to my post-every-weekend rule, haven't I? Sorry - turns out life is still busy after graduation. Hope you all had a fabulous Christmas!

A million thanks to my beautiful beta, Becca (LlamaWithAPen on Ao3), who is responsible for any of these fics being as tidy as they are.

* * *

Prompt from user Etmire T: _Oh my gosh I thought this was my window my mom is going to kill me if she realizes I snuck out so I'll just be going now if you don't mind._

 **Busted**

His feet slammed against the concrete, his heart pounding in his chest. Behind him, he could hear the sound of footsteps, echoing his own. He was ahead, but it was not enough. They were gaining on him. They might catch up.

It was two o'clock in the morning, and fourteen-year-old Sherlock Holmes had decided that he needed some air. The young teenager had long ago trained his body to survive without sleeping every night; he felt no desire to curl up in his bed and waste several hours being unconscious when there were so many more interesting things to do. There were experiments to be done, books to be read, work to be completed. Why would he want to spend time that he could be spending on those tasks asleep?

Sherlock's mind was not the kind that was easily calmed. It was always buzzing with thoughts, memories, and plans, and some days, it was worse than others. Most of the time, Sherlock could work with it, like he was supposed to. He could work through the thoughts in his mind, prioritising some thoughts and locking others away in separate areas until he had no choice but to deal with them. However, there were times when Sherlock could not get his mind to stop, and it was too loud and too fast and he could not do anything with it. Tonight was one of those times, and he had learnt that his best option was to leave the house and step outside. He could focus on the feel of the cool air and the glow of the streetlights and the sound of the occasional cars, until these thoughts grounded him and he could go back to whatever he was working on.

Unfortunately, he was not the only one who had decided to take a midnight wander. London was not a small town by anyone's definition, and yet, you always seemed to run into people you don't want to see. In Sherlock's case, these people were a small gang of boys in his year, who had made it their lives' missions to make Sherlock's life a living hell for as long as they could manage. Sherlock could not remember if he had done anything to trigger this behaviour – he had undoubtedly insulted them at one point or another, simply because he had insulted most of the people who he came into contact with on a regular basis. It was hardly his fault that they said such idiotic things. Really, though, Sherlock got the impression that these boys would have chosen him as their victim even if he had not given them incentive. Sherlock was scrawnier than them, smarter than them, and they would find any excuse they could to make him miserable.

Sherlock had had his fair share of black eyes. He had no interest in receiving another one tonight, especially not when it meant that his mother would discover he had sneaked out at night. She would be furious. No, worse than that – she wouldn't be furious, she would be _disappointed_ , because Sherlock would have broken an unspoken rule and lost her trust. Sherlock couldn't stand the thought of the disappointed expression on her face.

Words had been exchanged, between the boys and Sherlock. Threats had been made. Then, one had dragged his arm back, ready to throw the punch, and Sherlock had dodged, kicked the boy's legs out from underneath him, and run.

It gave him an advantage, but only temporarily. It did not take the boy long to scramble to his feet, and then they had a motive, a reason to not want to let Sherlock get away. They would not just leave him be; they would chase him down and make sure he was far more injured than the boy was from the fall. Unless Sherlock got home, to the safety of his own bedroom, before they caught up to him, he was doomed to have far more than just a black eye.

So, now Sherlock was running, as fast as he could manage. He took twists and turns at every corner he found, hoping to lose them, but he was never far enough ahead to stay out of sight for long.

Sherlock could not outrun them, not easily. He was fast, but they were faster. Fortunately, while Sherlock did not have any advantages physically, he certainly had advantages in his mind. One such advantage was the rather intricate map of London in his head.

He made a sharp turn into the alleyway, hoping that the lack of warning would give him a few more seconds' head-start, but he could not afford to slow down for a second. He continued to sprint towards the end of the alleyway, until he could reach the fire escape for one of the nearby flats. He leaped off the ground, grabbing the fire escape and pulling it down with his weight so that he could scramble up the stairs, up onto the roof of the building.

He was not safe up here. The creaks and squeaks of the fire escape behind him told him that the boys knew where he had gone, and were trying to follow him up. Fortunately, Sherlock had no intention to stay up on the roof for longer than was strictly necessary. He ran across the roof of the building, leaped from one roof to the next, and then scrambled down the next fire escape. By the time the bullies would have reached the roof of the building, Sherlock would be out of sight.

He allowed himself a second to catch his breath, once he reached the ground, but he could not afford to stop and wait for long. He would not be safe until he was in his bedroom, locked away from bullies that would happily leave him with bruises. He pushed off the wall and started running again. He was only a few streets away from his house, now. He was almost there.

The words "There he is" behind him caught his attention before he had turned one corner, and he knew that he had been seen. He was close, so close, but not close enough. He could yell for help, yes, and in a moment he would be close enough to his own house that, if he did yell for help, his mother might even hear him. But, then his mother would know that he had sneaked out, and that was precisely what he was trying to avoid. If he wanted to remain unharmed, and also keep it a secret that he often slipped out of his window at night, he needed to get inside before the bullies reached him.

It was this thought that spurred him on, faster, and faster, even though his legs ached. He turned the corner into his own street, but he took the turn faster than he should have on the uneven ground. He skidded and fell, trying to catch himself before he hit the ground, but he failed. He landed on his elbow, first, and then his hip, sliding on the ground a little. He winced in pain, but he could not let it slow him down. He scrambled to his feet once more, ignoring the pain on his skin, and he tried to run again. He was limping now, a little, and it slowed him down, but he pushed through it as best he could. He did not have any time to lose.

He turned off the main road and sprinted towards his house, taking a running leap for the wall. He knew the uneven brickwork, knew where his fingers could fit, though he found himself scrabbling for purchase a bit more than usual, struggling to find the usual hands and foot holds in the dark. He could hear footsteps rounding the corner, hear his bullies approaching, but they were never able to get close enough. He managed to hook his fingers over the edge of the windowsill and hoist himself up, through the open window, and he let gravity pull him the rest of the way to the floor.

He didn't get to his feet immediately, keeping himself hidden below the window, though he knew now that he was safe. They would not try to do any more harm to him now. They would not try to break into his house to hurt him. He was safe, now – at least until the next time that he ran into them, in the school grounds. For now, however, Sherlock was safe.

He closed his eyes for a moment and took a few deep breaths, letting his heart rate slow. When he opened them again, he froze.

There was a man on his bed.

Well, no, "man" was not quite the correct term. The person on Sherlock's bed was only a boy – older than Sherlock by at least a few years, but not old enough to be out of school. Sherlock scrambled to his feet as quickly as he could, the shock causing him to bump the back of his head against the wall. He hissed in pain, but refused to move any closer.

The boy did not look like he wanted to hurt Sherlock. He was not even speaking. He was just sitting there, staring at Sherlock with a bewildered look on his face. It made him look less threatening, almost harmless, and perhaps that was the reason why Sherlock could muster up the courage to speak.

"What are you doing in my room?" he demanded, putting on the most dangerous tone he could manage in the hope that it would scare the boy off before this escalated into whatever the boy had originally planned when he broke into Sherlock's room in the first place.

The boy's response, however, only confused Sherlock more. He didn't run for the door like Sherlock had hoped he would. Instead, he just looked startled. "Your room?" he said. "This is my room."

Sherlock opened his mouth to respond, and then closed it again as his attention spread out, to look past the boy on his bed and to take in the room more generally. There was no periodic table on the wall, no test tubes on the desk, no pile of Mycroft's old university-level textbooks stacked on the bookshelf. Instead, there were posters of people who Sherlock assumed were celebrities, there was a laptop on the desk with some sort of movie paused on the screen, and there were a bunch of books on the shelf that Sherlock did not own – mostly fiction, some classics that Sherlock had heard of and others that were completely unfamiliar.

This was not Sherlock's room.

How could Sherlock have been so stupid? He had been focusing more on trying to escape from his bullies than on where he was going, but how could he have climbed the wall into the wrong window?

In his head, Sherlock pulled up a map of London to track his movements over the last several minutes. He located the street where he had been when his bullies had found him, and he lit it up with a dot. Then, he moved the dot through the streets, following the route he was sure he had taken. The fire escape he climbed up had been one he used before, which was why he knew to turn down that particular alleyway, so he was sure of where he was at that point. When he had climbed back down off the roof, he had only been a couple of streets away from his house. Had he taken a wrong turn somewhere? No, he had definitely turned into his own street – he had seen the street sign, had run beneath the streetlamp that always flickered on and off. So, if he had made it to his own street, then he must have climbed through a window that was –

Oh.

He turned to the window and peered out of it, and it confirmed his suspicions. The view was just slightly off, compared to the view he usually got from his own room. Everything looked the same across the street, except for one minor detail: everything was shifted to the left.

Sherlock had climbed through his neighbour's window.

This realisation took no more than two seconds. In those two seconds, said neighbour's eyes had latched onto Sherlock's wrist. "You're bleeding," he said, and Sherlock looked at the boy, and then at his own wrist, where he could see a drop of blood sliding down from beneath his shirt sleeve.

He stripped off his coat quickly, and he could see that the fabric of his shirt was bloodied, a mark forming where his elbow had hit the ground. It was only now that his attention was called to it that he realised that it hurt.

The injury could not be that bad, given he had not fallen from a great height and he had managed to get back to his feet and keep running afterwards, but the blood was dark in contrast to his white shirt. This shirt would have to be disposed of, now. Otherwise, Mother would see it when she next did laundry and she would know that he had been up to no good.

"Let me see," the boy said, taking a step closer, and Sherlock jerked his arm away. He tried to step backwards, but he had not given himself any room to move; his back hit the wall behind him and he winced.

Immediately, the other boy put his hands up in the surrender position. "It's okay," he said gently. "I'm not going to hurt you, I promise. Let me just take a look at it, okay?"

Sherlock regarded the boy sceptically, holding his arm close to his chest. "Why should I trust you?" he asked.

The boy considered the question for a moment. "Well," he said after a pause. "For starters, you were the one who broke into my house, not the other way around."

"I didn't break into your house," Sherlock argued, and then, when the boy gave him a look, he corrected, "I didn't intentionally break into your house. I thought it was my house."

"I figured as much," said the boy. "I know you're my neighbour."

Sherlock blinked. "You do?" he said, thinking to himself that he had no recollection of ever seeing this boy in his life. He was, however, grateful for the confirmation that he was, in fact, in the house next door to his own.

The boy – his neighbour – nodded. "Yeah, I see you around sometimes. You were the one who blew something up in your backyard once."

"That was a controlled explosion," Sherlock said quickly. "It was intentional."

"It made a loud noise and I thought someone was trying to blow up my house."

"It was hardly loud enough to sound like a bomb that was strong enough to take down a house."

The boy shrugged his shoulders. "I've never heard a real-life bomb, only the ones on telly. You can't blame me for not recognising the noise." He gestured to Sherlock's arm again, and then asked, "Can I take a look at it?"

Sherlock hesitated for a long moment, holding onto his arm protectively, but after a moment, he decided that this boy did not seem to be a threat. He extended his arm slowly and carefully, and the other boy took his wrist with one hand and used the other to push Sherlock's shirt sleeve up his arm. Sherlock winced as the fabric grazed over his injury, and when it was revealed, the boy hissed in sympathy. "Yep, that looks unpleasant. Had a nasty fall, did you?"

Sherlock pulled his arm away. "It's fine," he said shortly.

The other boy just smiled, and shook his head. "Let me get my first aid kit. I'll clean it up for you."

"That's hardly necessary."

"Look at the state of it, it's definitely necessary. Besides, wouldn't you rather I clean it up while you're here, so that you can hide it from your parents and you don't have to admit you sneaked out?"

Sherlock opened his mouth, then closed it, and frowned. "How did you know I sneaked out?" he asked after a moment.

"It's two o'clock in the morning and you climbed through my window, thinking it was yours," John said. "Been there, done that. Sit down and roll your sleeve up, and I'll go grab my first-aid kit."

Sherlock considered arguing, or perhaps just climbing out the window while the boy was out of the room, but, as much as he did not want to admit it, the boy was right. The nasty graze on Sherlock's elbow made it clear that he had left the house in the middle of the night, and Mother would definitely see the graze if Sherlock did not take care of it – or let the other boy take care of it – while he was here.

Sherlock's neighbour stepped out of the room, and Sherlock sat down on the bed. He tried to roll up his sleeve a little more, but it was too tight to move any further up his elbow, and the fibres of the shirt stuck to the drying blood on his skin. He hissed in pain, and then opted for unbuttoning his shirt and pulling his injured arm out from the sleeve. He left the other sleeve on so that the shirt was still half on his body, which made him feel like he was holding onto at least a little bit more of his dignity.

The other boy returned only a couple of minutes later, carrying with him a small first-aid kit. He flicked the light on when he returned to the room, and Sherlock squeezed his eyes shut tightly, the light bright in contrast to the soft light of the moon and the street lamps that Sherlock had become used to over the past several minutes.

The boy sat down on the bed next to Sherlock, crossing his legs, and he opened up his first-aid kit. Sherlock regarded it curiously, taking in the different bits and pieces that had been put into the kit. The first thing the boy pulled out was a packet of antiseptic wipes. "This will sting a bit," he warned as he opened the packet. He held a wipe in one hand, and with his other, he took hold of Sherlock's wrist, steadying his arm.

"I have a high pain tolerance," Sherlock said calmly, and then he hissed at the first contact of the antiseptic wipe and the graze. He only just managed to resist the instinctive urge to tear his arm away. The boy, fortunately, did not comment.

"I'm John, by the way," the boy said after a moment of silence, as he carefully wiped the graze on Sherlock's elbow. Sherlock ignored the stinging sensation as best he could, turning his attention to the boy – John's – face.

"Sherlock," he replied.

"Nice to meet you, Sherlock. What were you doing out at two am?"

Sherlock shrugged his free shoulder. "Walking," he said shortly. "I needed the air."

John gave him a curious look, like he didn't really believe that that was all there was to the story, but, much to Sherlock's relief, he did not try to push it. Instead, he turned his attention back to the graze, and Sherlock looked towards it as well. Already, it was looking cleaner than it had a moment ago. It did not seem to cover such a large surface of skin, now that some of the blood had been cleaned away.

"It's pretty deep," John said. "You must have fallen hard. Maybe on something sharp."

Sherlock tried to remember the ground where he had fallen, trying to remember if there had been shards of broken glass or any particularly sharp stones where he had landed, but that image in his mind was fuzzy. He had scrambled to his feet quickly. He had not given himself a moment to even assess his own injury, let alone the ground itself. "Possibly," he said after a pause.

John looked at the wound again. "I suppose if you were running, the momentum might have made it worse, too," he added. Sherlock did not comment.

After a moment longer, John finished cleaning the wound. He scrunched the wipe up into a small ball and tossed it at his bin, his aim perfect even though the throw seemed effortless. He fished through his first-aid kit again, pulling out a sticky plaster at first and holding it up next to the wound to assess the size, before shaking his head. "A bandage is probably safer," he said, putting the plaster back in the first-aid kit and pulling out a small roll of bandages instead. "It's a bit dramatic, I know, but at least it means you won't tear half your skin off when you tear off the plaster."

"I highly doubt half my skin would come off with a small piece of sticky plaster."

"I'm exaggerating, genius. The point remains: pulling off a plaster when has been stuck to a nasty graze like that will hurt. Give me your arm."

Sherlock extended his arm again, wincing a little at the pulling sensation as the grazed skin of his elbow stretched. John started with a piece of plastic (to avoid the fabric catching on the graze, John explained), which he wrapped around Sherlock's elbow. He followed that with the bandage, and secured it in place, before patting Sherlock once on the shoulder.

"All fixed," he said cheerily.

Sherlock looked at the bandage that was wrapped around his arm. It made it look worse, in a way, like Sherlock had received an injury as severe as a broken bone rather than just a graze, though it felt less uncomfortable now that it was clean and no longer catching on the fabric of his shirt. Plus, it helped to have it cleaned up here. Like John had said, it was a lot safer to deal with it far away from mother's prying eyes, and John seemed to have done a much better job than Sherlock would have done should he have dealt with it himself.

"Do you do this a lot?" Sherlock asked, reaching for his shirt sleeve to slide his arm back into it again.

John shrugged his shoulders. "From time to time. My sister tended to get up to no good as a kid – still does, but in different ways, now. Anyway, she was always getting hurt when she was little, and I was always the one patching her up." A nostalgic smile came over his face, and he added, "She used to call me Doctor John."

Sherlock carefully pulled the sleeve over his arm, hissing as his elbow bent and caused discomfort, but after a moment of fiddling he managed to have the shirt on properly again. "You would probably make a decent doctor."

John smiled a little. "I want to be. Eventually."

"Between your sister and patching up people who accidentally climb through your window, I'm sure you're getting plenty of practice," Sherlock said, putting on his coat and getting to his feet. "Well, your assistance was much appreciated. Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to get back to my own room before my mother realises I'm not there."

He turned to head towards the window, and he heard John stand up behind him. "Where are you going?" John asked.

"Home," Sherlock said, frowning in confusion at the question. "Like I just said."

"No, I mean, are you going back out the window?"

"Obviously," Sherlock said. "Do you have a better suggestion?"

"Yes, actually. We can go out the front door, like civilised human beings."

"I'd rather not risk running into the rest of your family. While I doubt _you_ are going to tell my mother that I accidentally broke into your house, I expect that your own parents might be a little less willing to let my visit go unnoticed."

"Don't worry. I can guarantee you won't run into anyone right now even if you walk down the stairs banging pots and pans together. It's just me and dad – Harry's gone to her girlfriend's house for the night, and dad won't wake up for anything."

"Can you be certain? I'd rather not take the risk based on nothing more than how heavy you think your dad sleeps."

"Trust me," John said. "With the amount he had to drink when he got home today, he won't be awake until mid-morning at the earliest." The tone that John used was casual, but there was a tightness in his voice that made it clear that this was something of a sensitive topic. Sherlock decided not to push it, if only to keep John from taking out his anger by telling Sherlock's mother where Sherlock had been tonight.

"Lead the way, then," he said, and John turned, guiding them out the door and out the hall.

They did not risk making too much noise, even if it was unlikely that John's father would wake. They walked on their tiptoes, and did not speak. When they reached the front door, John opened it, very, very slowly, wincing at the little creak that it made, but there was no sound from the other side of the house that indicated that John's father had been woken by the sound.

Sherlock stepped out first, expecting John to maybe say goodnight and then shut the door behind him, but, instead, John stepped out as well, shutting the door enough to block out most of the sound but leaving it a little bit ajar.

"There really is no need to see me off," Sherlock said. "It won't take me thirty seconds to get to my own room."

"And you're going to climb through your window, aren't you?"

"Obviously. Your father might sleep like a log, but my parents will realise if I go through the front door."

"That's what I thought," John said. "So, I'm coming, so that I can at least help you climb through your window."

"I can climb through my own window. I've done it dozens of times before."

"I'm sure you have, but you haven't done it dozens of times with a nasty graze like that on your arm."

"Be that as it may, I still managed to climb through your window with the graze. I think I can manage."

"Adrenaline is a hell of a drug," John said. "And, you see, there would have been a lot more adrenaline pumping through your system while you were being chased by people who you're scared of."

Sherlock opened his mouth, and then closed it again. After a moment, he said, "I didn't say I was being chased."

"You didn't need to," John said. "You practically fell through my window, looking panicked. It's not a leap to work out that someone was after you."

Sherlock pursed his lips and looked away, avoiding John's eyes. This was not a discussion he was having with a complete stranger. In fact, this was not a conversation he was having with anyone, ever – even though John was looking at him with a gentle expression on his face and was showing a lot more kindness than Sherlock was used to receiving.

"I get it," John said after a moment, his voice soft. "Like I said: been there, done that. Not to sound cheesy or anything, but it gets a hell of a lot better once you get to the last year or two of school. And I'm pretty sure it'll get better still after that."

"That sounds incredibly cliché."

"Yeah, I know it does," John said. "But it's true all the same. So, come on. Let's get you home."

He gestured to the path leading from his house to Sherlock's, and Sherlock turned and started to walk. John immediately fell into step beside him.

They walked in silence for a moment, but as they turned onto Sherlock's front yard, John asked, "You're going to be okay, yeah?"

"It's just a graze," Sherlock said. "The whole first-aid treatment was completely unnecessary. Of course I'm going to be okay."

"That wasn't what I was talking about," John said, and when Sherlock turned to look at him, he clarified, "Whatever it was that made you sneak out of your house, and whatever – or whoever – it was that made you run home and climb through my window – that's what I'm more concerned about."

"I'm –" Sherlock started, but John gave him a look that seemed to say two things: one, that he wouldn't believe Sherlock if he lied, and two, that he would not hold any sort of judgements against Sherlock, should Sherlock tell him anything more truthful. "I'll be fine," he said after a moment, which felt more honest than using the present tense. "It's hardly anything new. I'm used to it."

"That's not reassuring, you know," John said, his voice becoming soft. It made Sherlock feel vulnerable, to have someone speak to him like this, like he was, in some way, important and deserved to be cared for. "Do you have someone to support you? Someone you can talk to about these sorts of things?"

"I don't need anyone," Sherlock said, and though John's voice became gentler, Sherlock's became tighter. "I hardly need support."

"You shouldn't have to go through this alone."

"Alone is what I have. Alone protects me."

"No, friends protect people."

Sherlock looked at John briefly, and then looked away. "I don't have friends," he said, and out of the corner of his eye he saw John's expression become sympathetic.

"If you want to be alone, then I'm not going to stop you," he said after a pause. "But, if you want someone to talk to, or just someone to cheer you up or just – anything - I'm right next door. Literally. I'm happy to be a friend, if you need one."

Sherlock was silent for a long moment. "Why?" he said at last.

John shrugged. "Because no one should have to go through anything alone if they don't want to. That's all. Now, are you climbing through your window or have you changed your mind?"

Sherlock stared at John for a moment longer, before turning and looking at the window above his head. "I don't have another option."

John nodded, clearly having expected that answer. "Come on then," he said. "I'll give you a boost. It'll hurt either way, but this will make it a little bit easier on you."

"I have done this dozens of times on my own," Sherlock pointed out, as John crouched down on one knee and locked his fingers together to make a foothold.

"You said that before," John said. "And I said, you haven't done it with that graze on your elbow."

"It's really not that bad."

"Are you going to accept my help, or are you going to stand there and be stubborn?"

Sherlock sighed, but he chose the first option. He put his hand on John's shoulder for support, and carefully put one foot into John's hands, testing it at first for stability before he let John take some of his weight. He stretched up with his good arm to grasp the bricks, where he knew he could fit his fingers around, and John pushed his foot up to help him until he could reach the window. It still hurt, stretching the grazed skin of his elbow, but it was not nearly as painful as it could have been had he tried to climb up himself.

Once he was safely through the window, he turned and leaned out to look at John, who was looking up at him, perhaps making sure that he was inside safely. He didn't want to risk talking – there was silence in the house, but Sherlock could not be sure that his voice would not be heard – so instead, after a moment's hesitation, he mouthed, 'Thank you'. He wasn't sure if he was referring to John helping him through the window, or something else.

"Goodnight," John replied from the front lawn, his voice hushed so much so that Sherlock barely heard it. Then, John turned, and he returned to his own home, and Sherlock moved to sit down on his bed, his mind much quieter than it had been before.


	13. Missing Persons

**Author's Note:** I realise I have not posted one of these fics in a few weeks. However, I have not been entirely absent. If you're interested, I wrote a couple of fics while the season was airing, centring around the last two of the three episodes. Feel free to check them out!

A million thanks to Becca (Ao3's LlamaWithAPen) for being the world's best beta.

* * *

Prompt from user FishCustard: Sherlock is a teenage budding detective, who takes daily walks through crowded city areas (Mall, park, city street, etc...) to further practise and develope[sic] his skills. John stops Sherlock mid-way through one of his walks and asks for help finding something.

 **Missing Persons**

London is like a petri dish. A loud, bustling, noisy, crowded petri dish.

Sherlock considers himself a scientist. Yes, he's only sixteen, but that does not mean he is not old enough to be one. Sherlock likes to gather information and form theories, to develop and test hypotheses, to follow the scientific method. He enjoys mixing chemicals to see what happens, he likes to study the bees as they come and go between the flowers and the hive that Sherlock's parents are yet to find in the backyard, and, perhaps more than anything, Sherlock likes to study people. From a purely social standpoint, Sherlock does not like people: social interaction is exhausting and tedious and Sherlock frequently finds himself saying things that upset or anger others. From a scientific standpoint, however, people are fascinating.

When Sherlock grows up – or, more correctly, when Sherlock reaches an age where people will take him seriously – he will be a consulting detective. He wants to solve crimes and mysteries (but only the really interesting ones, of course). He'll take the puzzles that the police can't solve, and he will be the one to find the thread that unravels it all. He won't do it for fame, or even for money. He wants to solve the unsolvable just because he likes the challenge.

Unfortunately, there are no classes that Sherlock can take at school, nor any degrees that he can study when he reaches university, that will give him the skills he needs to be a consulting detective. This is only to be expected, seeing as Sherlock invented the job. This just means that Sherlock needs to find more ways to prepare himself for this future career path. Sherlock is naturally clever, and he has always been noticing things about people, but even the most gifted of individuals needs to practice and train in order to improve their skills.

This is why Sherlock is here, wandering through a crowded shopping centre after school. This is what Sherlock does every day of the week. The shopping centre is the ideal location for studying human behaviour. Sometimes, Sherlock will choose a park instead, but London so often tends to be miserable and wet, and people often choose to stay indoors. The shopping centre is therefore often a popular location. Sherlock wanders through the stores, and he watches as teenagers gather after school, or business people rush about to make purchases before the stores close, or people window-shop and enjoying one another's company. Sherlock watches, and studies, and he makes deductions; he takes what he can see from how they dress and walk and talk and act, and he tries to work out the things that aren't so easily visible to the ordinary person's eye. It's practice, for when Sherlock does this with suspects that may have been involved in a crime. He will need to see what other people cannot.

He takes in a man in a suit, who keeps glancing at the watch on his wrist as he power-walks through the store. His nice attire says a formal event ( _dinner date_ ), but it's unlikely that such an event would be at four in the afternoon. It suggests that the man is ready several hours early ( _the event in question is important, leading the man to try to prepare early and make things perfect_ ). He's organised, given the fact that he is dressed so early ( _any purchase he is making must be something he could not have easily gotten earlier – food, perhaps, or, more likely, flowers_ ). He's jittery, clearly nervous. This is not just any event. Sherlock deduces that he is planning to propose.

He turns his attention to a teenage couple, walking hand in hand. The young woman looks comfortable, content. Her shoulders are back, and there's a smile on her face. The boy, however, keeps looking around, and he looks over every time he passes by someone who looks close to their age. He's afraid of someone seeing them. This relationship is a secret. It is likely that this young woman is not his only partner, and the boy does not want people to know that he is cheating. The relaxed posture of the girl says that she likely does not know she is the 'other woman'.

Sherlock begins to turn his attention to his next target – a woman holding the hand of a small child – but his attention instead is rather abruptly drawn to another person, as said other person walks straight into him.

"Excuse you," Sherlock says, turning to face the idiot who is apparently incapable of watching where he is going.

The idiot in question is a young man, no more than a couple of years older than Sherlock himself. The expression on his face is alarmed and stressed, but in a way that suggests there is more on his mind than just the fact that he has run into a stranger. "Sorry," he says, but he only makes eye contact with Sherlock for a split second; then, he's looking over his shoulder, looking around, even as he continues to speak. "Sorry. I'm so sorry."

He's looking for someone, that much is clear. The fact that he ran into Sherlock might make one think that he's trying to avoid someone, perhaps even running for someone, but his gaze is not only on the direction behind him. He's also looking beside him, in front of him – so, he's not looking for someone who might be following him. He's not out of breath, either, so clearly, he's not trying to flee. Sherlock also gathers from the expression on his face that it is incorrect to assume the man is _afraid_ that he will see someone. No, it seems to be quite the opposite – he is hoping for it.

"Are you looking for someone?" Sherlock asks, interested in confirming his hypothesis.

"Sort of," the boy replies absently. "My sister. You haven't seen a girl around my age with dyed red hair, have you? She would have been hard to miss."

Sherlock shakes his head in response. He'd have remembered someone with an outstanding appearance. The frantic expression on the young man's face, however, intrigues him. "She's your age, you said," he comments. "Surely she's old enough to find her way home if she's lost."

"She's not lost, exactly," says the young man. "Not in that sense. She's... One of her friends told me that she was planning on running away. Which is kind of a common threat, from her, but she didn't make it to her last class today and none of her friends have seen her and I think she might actually be going through with it this time and I'm worried she's going to get herself into some sort of trouble."

Sherlock studies the boy with renewed interest. Now, this is akin to a missing persons case. This could be practice for one day, when Sherlock actually does work on a real missing persons case. "If she has indeed run away from home, why would you expect to find her here?" he asks.

"It's a long shot, I know, but I didn't know where else to start. She didn't leave the house with anything this morning, so I thought – hoped – that she might have come here to gather supplies."

Sherlock raises his eyebrows. "That's not the most idiotic idea I've ever heard, but there is a much better way to start," he says, and he pulls his phone out of his pocket. "What's her name?"

"Who are you going to call?" the boy asks.

"Don't be stupid, I hardly have contacts who can help me locate someone I am unfamiliar with. I'm going to look her up online. People give a lot away on social media, especially teenage girls. Now, her name?"

The young man hesitates for a moment, before finally saying, "Harry. Harry Watson."

Both 'Harry' and 'Watson' are remarkably common names, and Sherlock's search immediately shows a large number of matches. However, with the knowledge that Harry is a girl, Sherlock is able to rule out a large number of results very quickly, and after that, it's easy enough to find the right one. The profile in question has a picture of a girl with bright red hair attached to it.

Next to the girl in the picture is another young woman with dark hair, but Sherlock ignores her for the moment being. He goes onto Harry's page, and finds the most recent post, made just last night. 'fed up', it reads, followed by a silly-looking angry face. Sherlock clicks on the comments (21 of them, in total) and scrolls through the list. Most of them seem unimportant – people asking 'what's up, babe?', or offering consolation in the form of virtual 'hugs', as though virtual hugs could substitute for actual human contact. One comment, however, does catch his eye. It's written by a girl named Clara, and the profile picture attached to it shows the same dark-haired girl that features in Harry's own profile picture. The comment reads 'PM me xx'.

"I don't know what you're expecting to find," the young man – the other Watson – says. "I mean, I don't think Harry would have given away the details to her run-away plan on her public page."

"Not on her public page, no," Sherlock mutters, frowning at the phone. He needs access to the things on Harry's page that are not public. He needs access to her private messages – particularly with this Clara. He looks up at Watson. "What's her password?"

Watson stares blankly back at him. "How would _I_ know her password?" he says. Sherlock lets out an exasperated sigh.

"Fine, I'll just have to figure it out myself," he says. He hears Watson make a sceptical sound, but he ignores him, opening up the login page. "Teenage girls are rarely motivated to choose a safe and secure password over a simple and easy-to-remember one," he continues, clicking first on the box for Harry's username and typing in the email address that he had seen on Harry's page a moment earlier.

"You don't know Harry, though," Watson says. "How could you guess what password would be easiest for her to remember?"

"Some passwords are more common than others," Sherlock replies, and in his mind, he's already pulling up a list of the most common passwords. He tries 'password' first, then the name of the website, then 'abc123'. None of them show any success. However, Sherlock is not ready to give up that easily.

The website does not say that the password needs to contain capital letters or numerical characters. That helps. People are even less likely to choose a safe and secure password on a website that doesn't require it.

"I really don't know that you can work it out," Watson is saying. "You don't know her. Hell, I'm her brother, and sometimes it feels like I don't even know her."

Sherlock continues to ignore him. The next password he tries is 'iloveyou' – he knows that that one is common among teenage girls. The same error message comes up as before. He purses his lips, and then he thinks about Harry's profile page, trying to determine if there is anything revealing on there. He had not spent a great deal of time on the page – only enough to see the most recent post and the comments, and, of course, Harry's profile picture. There was one particular person who featured in both – the dark-haired girl in Harry's profile picture who had also commented on her post.

He taps the password box again and types 'iloveyouclara'. Immediately, the bar at the top of his screen indicates that the webpage is loading, and then it opens. Sherlock's face cracks into a grin.

"Tell your sister she really needs a more creative password," he says, and he opens up Harry's inbox.

"Wait, you cracked it?" Watson says. "You – how did you..."

Sherlock tunes the man out, focusing his attention on the most recent message in Harry's inbox – which, unsurprisingly, is from none other than Clara himself. The inbox tells him that there are hundreds of messages between the two young women, but he is only interested in the most recent ones.

"Really, it was unbearably simple," Sherlock says. "Your sister clearly cares very little about cyber-safety." He scrolls through the messages for a moment, and then says, "And you're not going to have any luck finding her in the shopping centre. She and her girlfriend are running away together. They'll be at the train station by now."

"Her girlfriend?" Watson repeats, which was not the part of that sentence that Sherlock expected him to focus on.

"Clara."

"Clara's her _girlfriend_? I thought they were best friends!"

"The glasses of heteronormativity never cease to amaze me," Sherlock mutters. "Having read your sister's most recent messages, I can assure you that she and Clara are very much together, and their running away together is something of a romantic adventure. Now, if you hurry, you should be able to catch them before they get on a train for Paris."

"Paris?" Watson repeats, and his eyes widen at the word. He mutters a swear word under his breath, and looks around as though he's trying to work out what way is the quickest way to get to the train station. He decides on a direction, turns, looks back over his shoulder only long enough to say, "Thank you!", and then he's off into the crowd, quickly disappearing amongst the other people there. Sherlock watches him only until he's out of sight, and then he looks away, turning his attention to a new target in the crowd. The missing persons investigation was an acceptable, temporary distraction, but his day of deductions is not over yet.

OoO

The next twenty-two or so hours are business as usual. Sherlock goes to school, and then goes straight to the shopping centre to continue his detective training. He has enough control over his mind to not daydream when he needs to be focusing, so he hardly thinks about the events from yesterday until he hears a voice behind him.

At first, he ignores the voice. He can hear it, of course ("Hey! Hey, you!"), and he acknowledges in some part of his mind that the voice sounds familiar, but Sherlock has no reason to expect the words to be directed towards him. Sherlock doesn't have friends. He doesn't have people who would be calling for him. It's only when he feels a hand on his arm that he realises that the voice was directed to him.

He turns around, and, of course, it's Watson. He looks considerably less stressed than he did yesterday.

"Sorry," the boy says. "I didn't get your name yesterday."

"No, you were rather preoccupied with your sister's disappearance," Sherlock replies. "You found her, I presume?"

Watson nods his head. "Yeah. You were right, she was at the train station. Yelled at me for about ten minutes before she agreed to come back home, though she made me pay for both her and Clara's unused tickets."

"Why bother?" Sherlock asks. "Why not just let her run away? More likely than not she would have come back. Most teenagers do once they run out of money, which happens rather quickly given that most teenagers do not have a steady income."

"I'd be more worried if she did have a steady income. She could use that money to do something dangerous," Watson says. "Harry and I don't get on, but she is my sister. Someone has to look after her. She's not exactly known to make the best decisions." He pauses, and then adds, "And it's not entirely selfless of me, either. Dad would have killed me if she hadn't come home. He would have blamed me for not taking better care of her."

Sherlock thinks that this says quite a lot about their father, that Watson expects that his father's response to Harry's disappearance to be anger at his son rather than worry about his daughter. That said, the fact that Harry was running away at all says that the familial relationship is not a positive one. Before Sherlock says anything on this note, however, Watson seems to have realised what he said, because he's quick to shake his head. "Sorry. That was a bit more personal than I meant it to be."

"Intriguing that you should accidentally tell that to a stranger," Sherlock says.

Watson shakes his head. "Ignore it. Anyway, I'm just glad you were smarter than I was, so she's home safe now. I owe you one."

Sherlock shrugs his shoulders dismissively. "It made for a marginally interesting ten minutes," he says. "I was glad to have some sort of mental stimulation. Did your sister change her password to something more creative?"

"She's changed her password, though I don't know how creative her new one is. I didn't tell her that it was you who hacked into her account, obviously. She thinks I did it. Which is better, really, because it's one thing for your brother to violate your privacy like that, it's another thing for a stranger to do it." A beat, and then he adds, "Not that I'm blaming you. I'm glad you did."

"Of course not," Sherlock says. "But, your sister won't see it that way. Given she was apparently keeping her relationship, if not her sexual orientation, a secret from you, she might have even more negative thoughts towards the idea of you invading her privacy."

"Well, she's told me that she's never speaking to me again. But, she's home safe, so I'll deal with the silent treatment. If it weren't this, I guarantee we'd have something else to fight about."

Sherlock's lips quirk upwards into a half-smile.

A moment of silence stretches between them, before the boy extends his hand. "I'm John," he says, and Sherlock reaches out to clasp it.

"Sherlock."

"Nice to meet you, Sherlock. Thank you again for yesterday. You did a better job than I could have and you were probably a lot faster than the police would have been too."

"That's the idea," Sherlock says, and at Watson's John's slightly confused expression, he clarifies, "I intend to become a detective."

John's face breaks into a smile at that. "You'd make a good one."

"I expect so," Sherlock says. He knows he's good at what he does, he doesn't need the reassurance from a complete stranger.

(But it's nice, all the same).

John pulls his phone out of his pocket, checking the time. "I better go," he says. "I'm glad I caught you today. Maybe I'll see you around?"

Even in the crowded shopping centre, John managed to find Sherlock twice. It's not hard to believe that they might cross paths again. "Perhaps," Sherlock says.

John beams, and then turns, disappearing into the crowd, and illogically, Sherlock finds himself hoping that this isn't their last meeting.

For now, however, Sherlock has more deductions to make.


	14. Trapped

**Author's Note:** This fic was quite out of my comfort zone, as far as it's not something I'm used to writing, and it's been one of the most fun to write so far. A million thanks to Becca (Ao3's LlamaWithAPen) for beta-ing it!

* * *

Prompt from user Etmire T: _So like, the building is surrounded while both of them are in the bathroom and everyone is held hostage and they don't think anyone knows they're in there. And it's like: Wait what are you doing don't go out there are you crazy?_

 **Trapped**

It starts like this:

John has spent his Friday night at an art gallery, at the recommendation of a colleague who has informed him that their current exhibit is spectacular. To someone who is artistically-minded, like his colleague, it probably is, and John can appreciate the aesthetic of it, but he has decided that he's seen enough of the artwork now and is ready to go home for the evening. There is no one at home waiting for him, but John does not mind curling up and watching a movie until he falls asleep. With any luck, falling asleep watching a movie might help him avoid lying awake in bed and thinking about the war, which will only lead to nightmares.

He uses the restroom before he leaves. There is one other man in the restroom – tall, well-dressed, and looking much more suited to the art gallery than John does. The man does not appear to be using the bathroom, but is apparently examining the small, frosted glass window that allows a small amount of natural light into the room. He is taking a photo of it on his phone. John does not understand why, though he does not particularly care. John has met stranger people.

As John washes his hands, there is a fraction of a second where he and the stranger make eye contact through the mirror. It's awkward. John looks away, turns off the tap, and looks around for paper towel or a hand dryer.

Then, outside of the bathroom, two gunshots ring out.

OoO

Like many soldiers, John struggled to readjust to civilian life. His therapist diagnosed him with mild post-traumatic stress disorder, and John did not feel she was wrong to do so. He knew the symptoms, he fit the criteria. His sleep was disrupted and haunted by nightmares, he avoided memories of the war as much as possible, and he was much more hypervigilant than he was before. He had a much greater startle reflex.

This startle reflex manifested itself once when he was walking down the street. He was trying to save money on cab fares, and he was in need of some sort of exercise. At that time, he had had a limp, a phantom pain in his leg, and he had to walk with a cane. He knows now that that limp was psychosomatic – several months of physical therapy had finally proven to him that, once his fight-or-flight response was activated, the distraction took his mind off the pain and the limp went away. At the time, however, he had thought it to have a real, physical cause, and it did limit the amount of exercise he was capable of doing. Walking was the best he could do.

Besides, John had been out of milk, so he could not lock himself in his flat all day (at least, not if he wanted his tea to taste pleasant).

He had been lost in thought, as he walked. He had barely been aware of what was going on around him, of the cars or the people or the occasional pigeon.

Then, beside him, a car had backfired.

John had reacted automatically, instantly. He was on the ground before he had fully processed what had happened, as though he was ducking for cover. It only took him a second to realise his mistake, to notice the looks on the faces of the people around him – some confused, some pitying. The pity was the worst.

John had gotten to his feet and gone home without milk.

OoO

John's reaction to the sound of gunfire is just as it had been to the car backfiring. He drops to the floor, as though to get out of the line of fire – even though he does not know where the line of fire is. This time, his mind does not immediately correct his mistake, does not immediately make him realise that the sound was not a gunshot but instead a car, or something on the television. There is no mistake this time – that was gunfire. It's further supported by the way the stranger in the bathroom has also dropped to the floor, and by the sound of screams that follow the gunshots – followed immediately by a male voice yelling, "Everyone on the floor!"

John's gaze meets the bright eyes of the other man in the bathroom, and they hold eye contact for only a matter of seconds before they both come to the same idea. They stumble to their feet and rush to the wall by the bathroom door – if anyone should open that door, then, for a moment, the door will hide them both from the person's line of sight.

The stranger is closer to the door than John is, and he takes advantage of it, pressing his ear to the wood to listen to whatever is taking place outside. John tries to hear what he can through the wall, but the best he can make out is muffled talking. The screams and yells that followed the gunshots have been silenced – a man's voice is now all John can hear. John wishes he could make out the words, but he is unsuccessful. Whoever is speaking is not close enough to the bathroom to be heard.

As minutes tick by, it becomes clear that the person who is speaking is not coming any closer to the bathroom. There is no sound of footsteps, and the sound of his voice is not increasing in volume. Whoever is out there has their attention focused on the other people in the art gallery. They don't know that John and this stranger are occupying the bathroom. No one knows that they are in here.

The thought is equal parts reassuring and terrifying.

When the man pulls his ear away from the door, John turns to him, wondering if he has managed to pick up more than John has. "What's going on?" John hisses, making sure not to speak any louder than is absolutely necessary. "Robbery?"

The man gives him a look that says that that comment was incredibly stupid. "Would you rob an art gallery while there are still people inside?" he asks.

"I wouldn't rob an art gallery at all."

The man rolls his eyes. "Well, if you did, you'd have a tough time getting out with a piece of art." He looks towards the door, and then says, apparently more to himself than to John, "It doesn't make sense. They should have come after closing hours. What need do they have for hostages?"

 _Hostages_. The word makes John feel sick. It's bad enough being in here, not knowing what is going on outside the door, not knowing how long it will take for someone to find them – and what will happen when they do. John can only imagine how it must feel for the people out there.

Numbness tingles at the tips of John's fingers. He's all too familiar with the sensation. He takes a deep breath, clenches and unclenches his hands a few times, and then looks towards the other man. By this point, the other man has pulled his fingers out of his pocket. His fingers are flying over the phone screen.

"Who are you texting?" John hisses.

"The British Government," the man says shortly.

John thinks it's not time for jokes.

After a moment, the man finishes typing. He stares at his screen, and then a clearly frustrated expression crosses his face. He looks almost as though he's considering hurtling his phone at the wall. "No reception," he says.

The man pockets his phone and then walks to the wall. John steps out of his way, wondering if he has come up with a plan, but when the man reaches the wall, he makes a sharp turn and walks back in the opposite direction. He's pacing. John follows him with his gaze, watching the tight expression on the man's face.

"What's your name?" he asks after a moment, softly.

"Sherlock," the man replies. "Why?"

"Sherlock," John repeats. "I'm John."

The man – Sherlock – stops pacing for a moment so that he can turn and frown at John. "Not really the time for introductions, don't you think?" he says.

John shrugs. "I was just hoping to take your mind off this," he says quietly.

"You think I'm panicked. I'm not panicked. I'm thinking."

"I wouldn't blame you for panicking."

"You seem to have that covered."

John clenches his hands again and looks away.

After a moment, the man walks to the far side of the bathroom, and he pulls his phone out of his pocket again. John watches as he stands on his toes and holds his phone in the air, trying to find a signal. John opens his mouth to ask if it's working; however, then a sound from outside gets his attention. It's not the same man's voice, this time. It's a woman's voice, yelling, "Get your hands off of me!"

John has to do something. He _has_ to. He cannot just sit here and do nothing, not when there are people out there being hurt, not when he has military training and medical expertise and is probably much better equipped than anyone out there to actually do something. He has to help.

He manages to do no more than take half a step towards the door before Sherlock grabs his arm, stopping him from moving any further. "You'll be shot the moment you step outside," he says.

"I have to help," John replies.

"You won't be much help dead. There's a fine line between bravery and stupidity. Do please resist the urge to cross it."

John purses his lips, looking towards the doorway, but as much as he wants to go out there and do something, he knows the man is right. Good intentions won't impede the flight of a bullet.

Sherlock releases John's arm after a moment, once he's decided that John is not going to do something stupid like try to go out there. He steps past John to press his ear to the door, listening. John listens too – he hasn't heard the woman scream again, but he has no way of knowing if that means that she is not being harmed or if it means that she has been silenced in some other way. When Sherlock pulls his ear away from the door, John gives him a questioning look, but the man replies with a slight shake of his head.

"I can hear talking, but I can't make out words," he says. "Male, mid-to-late thirties. One voice, but they are pausing frequently as if to give someone time to respond, which suggests they're making a phone call."

"Negotiating with the police?" John suggests, thinking of live coverage of hostage situations that he's seen on television in the past.

"It's a possibility. By now they would have set up a perimeter."

The police having set up a perimeter should be of some comfort. It is not. John knows the police cannot just storm the building, not without risking innocent people's lives. Hostage situations can last for hours. John isn't sure he can handle being stuck in here for hours, not knowing what's going on outside that door.

"What do they want?" he says, squeezing his eyes shut tight and rubbing them for a moment. "Why an art gallery, of all places?"

Sherlock shrugs his shoulders. "Public enough location to get people's attention, valuable artwork inside on top of the hostages, and there is only one door that needs to be guarded."

"But... it's an art gallery," John says. He ignores the look that the man gives him, and continues, "I mean, surely an ideal place would have more hostages. There weren't even ten people out there when I was out earlier. It doesn't give them much to negotiate with."

Sherlock frowns at that, narrowing his eyes in thought.

John looks towards the door and lets out a sigh. "Maybe they didn't think this through," he says.

"No, it's not that it wasn't well thought out," Sherlock says, apparently not realising that John was not being serious. "They organised this. They gathered resources, organised a time and a place, planned it, developed contingency plans based on any possible turn of events – this is not a spontaneous crime. At some point, they decided on a location, so they must have acknowledged that there would only be a few people here."

"Then why are they here?"

"Why indeed," Sherlock echoes. He no longer seems to be talking to John as much as he is talking to himself. "Few hostages, numerous security cameras, minimal cash on the premi-"

His voice trails off, and then his eyes widen, fixating on something over John's head. For a moment, John is convinced that there is someone, or something, behind him, but when he looks over his shoulder, there is nothing there but the bathroom wall.

"What is it?" he asks, looking back at Sherlock. The man's gaze snaps suddenly onto John's eyes as he speaks.

"Where's the nearest bank?" he demands.

John blinks. "Pardon?"

Sherlock lets out an exasperated sigh. "Try not to be an idiot for five minutes. Where's the bank? It's hardly a complicated question."

John chooses not to frustrate the man any more by pointing out that it wasn't the question itself that caught him off guard. Instead, he thinks for a moment, before answering, "A few streets away."

The man's eyes go bright at the words, as though he has just had an epiphany. Seconds later, his phone is out of his pocket and he is frantically typing away.

"What?" John hisses. "What is it?"

The man answers with another question. "What happens during hostage situations?"

John frowns. "What kind of a question is that?"

Sherlock looks up from his phone only for long enough to give John an unimpressed look, before lowering his gaze to his phone again. "What happens with the police?" he clarifies.

(The new question clarifies nothing.)

"I don't know," John says after a pause. "They set up a perimeter, obviously. Try to negotiate?"

"Yes!" Sherlock says, as though John is finally getting it. (John is not). When John does not say another word, however, Sherlock continues, "They focus their attention on the hostage situation. They surround the building, putting as many of their available officers on the job as possible they can ensure the safety of the hostages. Which means..."

The other shoe drops. "Which means," John finishes, "that there are less officers available to deal with anything else that happens at the same time."

" _Exactly_. If you wanted to limit Scotland Yard's resources, a hostage situation would be the best way to do it. Which means that, if someone tries to rob a bank, they are going to have a much higher probability of success than they would usually."

John squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, thinking. "It's not like all the police in London are here, though," he says. "There are still going to be people who could respond to a security alarm going off."

"Absolutely," Sherlock says. "However, those people will not be in the immediate vicinity. In the time it takes for them to get from their location to the bank, they could be too late. And, of course, that's assuming that the thieves haven't worked out a way to get past the alarm system. The hostage situation here will limit the number of people paying attention to anything else."

It sounds more like an elaborate crime novel than anything that could really happen in John's life. However, Sherlock seems so convinced that this is the case, and in a strange, convoluted sort of way, it makes sense.

Sherlock hisses in frustration after a moment, lifting his phone into the air. "I still can't get any reception," he says.

John looks around, first at the door, and then at the small window on the opposite side of the room. It's far too small to climb through, but maybe they can get someone's attention from outside. They need some way of letting someone know what's going on, before it's too late. Who knows how long they have before the perpetrators find what they want? And – an even more sickening thought – what will happen to the hostages once they are no longer needed for this ploy?

Sherlock seems to have the same idea: they need to do something. However, his ideas turn out to be just a little bit more extreme than the idea of getting someone's attention through the window.

"We have to go out there," he says.

John stares. "Excuse me?" he hisses. "Are you crazy? What happened to the fine line between bravery and stupidity?"

Sherlock does not comment on that. "You can stay here if you want," he says, "but I'm going out there. Lestrade's team is useless without me."

John wonders who in the world Lestrade is, but that's a question that can wait. "You'll get yourself killed if you go out there," he says.

"Not if I have a plan. My question is, are you coming or are you hiding in here?"

A sick feeling twists in the pit of John's stomach, and the numbness returns to his fingers. He swallows past the lump in his throat. "Fine," he says. "What's the plan?"

The man frowns, narrowing his brow in thought, and John is not reassured at all by the idea that the man's plan is not yet fully-formed. After a moment, Sherlock asks, "Have you had any experience in hand-to-hand combat?"

John thinks of schoolyard fights with bullies, of mandatory fitness training routines, of sparring with people just for the sake of improving one's strength. Yes, John has had experience in hand-to-hand combat. Aloud, he replies, "A bit."

"Good," Sherlock says, and then he puts his hands on John's shoulders, pushing him back to that same spot by the door where they had both hidden earlier – the spot that would give them a few extra seconds of hiding, should anyone come inside.

John lets himself be man-handled, but only because he has no real idea of what's going on. When Sherlock has guided him back to the spot, he moves to the toilet stall furthest from the door and steps inside. He closes the door very quietly and turns the lock, and a second later, John sees the man's head poke up over the top of the stall. He must have climbed onto the toilet lid. He grabs the top of the stall and, with impressive upper-body strength, he hoists himself up and over into the other stall. He makes as little noise as possible as he lands, and then he steps out through the open door, leaving the door to the stall beside him shut and locked.

He turns to face John and mouths the word, 'Ready?'

 _No_ , John thinks, because he has absolutely no idea what he's supposed to be ready for.

John nods his head.

Sherlock turns towards the open stall from which he had just exited, grabs the open door, and then slams it shut, loud.

He does not wait a second before he ducks to John's side, taking his place in their chosen hiding space by the bathroom door. It's not a moment too soon. Seconds later, the bathroom door opens, slowly, and someone steps inside to investigate the noise.

That someone is carrying a gun. It's the first thing John sees coming through the door, followed by the person holding it – a man dressed in black. John cannot see the man's face from his position. The man does not check behind the bathroom door and does not see John and Sherlock. His gun, and his gaze, are both pointed towards the closed bathroom door, as he takes slow, quiet steps towards it.

Beside him, Sherlock bides his time until the right second, and then he takes two quick strides to the man. In almost the same movement, he grabs the man's shoulder with his left hand, and when the man turns, Sherlock uses his right to grab the barrel of the gun, shoving it out of the way before he can get shot.

There's no look of shock on the stranger's face, and it takes John a second to realise that this is because he is wearing an expressionless mask. It flattens out the man's features, giving his face an emptiness that looks alien. It seems to throw Sherlock for a moment too, to see something that doesn't even look human, and the masked man uses the split second of shock to kick Sherlock's legs out from underneath him.

From there, it's a flurry of movement, too quick to follow. Sherlock doesn't let himself stay on the floor for long – he rolls out of the way before he can get shot, leaps to his feet, and immediately goes back to trying to disarm the man. If it were just the two of them, Sherlock surely wouldn't stand a chance – he's fast on his feet, but unlike the masked man, he is unarmed.

However, Sherlock does have one advantage – he's not alone. Between the two of them, they actually stand a chance. The masked man's attention is occupied by Sherlock, and it gives John a chance to come up behind him. He grabs the man's arm, ducks the instinctual punch that the man throws as he turns around, and follows it by grabbing the man's wrist so that he cannot immediately point his gun at John either. Sherlock catches on quickly, and goes to grab the gun out of the man's hand.

The masked man is not to be beaten so easily. He's taller than John is, and he takes advantage of it, aiming a kick at John's abdomen that knocks John backwards and frees the man's wrist. He immediately turns to point his gun at Sherlock, but Sherlock is fast too, ducking out of the way and then following with a fist to the man's solar plexus. It gives John the time he needs to get back on his feet, come up behind the man, and aim one hard, sharp kick at the place just beneath the man's knees.

The masked man's legs buckle at the kick, and Sherlock takes advantage of the moment to snatch the gun out of the man's hand. In almost the same movement, he uses the butt of the gun to whack the man over the head, and the masked man's body slumps to the floor. Immediately, Sherlock points his newly-acquired gun at the man's head in a wordless warning against getting up, but it's not necessary. Now that the masked man is down, he does not move.

They both wait a few seconds, then John exchanges glances with Sherlock, before taking a step towards the fallen body. He reaches down, wary of the possibility that the man might get up at any moment, but when there continues to be no movement, he presses two fingers to the pulse point at the man's neck.

"He's alive," he says after a beat. "Unconscious."

"Good," says Sherlock. "One less thing to worry about. It's safe to assume that there's someone else out there, otherwise this one wouldn't have left the hostages alone."

John nods his head in agreement, and then he holds out his hand for the gun. When Sherlock does not immediately hand it over, John gives him a look. "Trust me. I was a soldier, and I can guarantee I'm a better shot than you are."

"What makes you think I'm not a good shot?"

"Anyone with as much experience as I've had would not be holding the gun like that."

Sherlock looks down at his hands, and then passes the gun to John. John checks that it's loaded (it is) before he looks up.

"What's the plan?" he asks.

Sherlock thinks for a moment, and then says, "Don't get shot."

"Wonderful," John sighs. He glances towards the door, and tries to tell himself that this is nothing, that he's been in an active war zone and so he has definitely had more dangerous experiences than this. Then he thinks that at least in Afghanistan he had some idea of what to expect. In many ways, this feels far more terrifying.

And at the same time, John feels more alive than he has in a long while.

Sherlock steps past him to get to the door, taking a moment to listen. John can't hear what's going on outside. He has no idea what they are about to walk into.

Sherlock glances towards him, and John nods his head once, lifting the gun in his hands and pointing it towards the door. Sherlock waits until he's ready, and then pulls it open.

There is no time for hesitation or uncertainty, and there is absolutely no time to show fear. Being the one with the gun, John steps out first, and he doesn't step out carefully. He storms out the door with his gun raised and an expression on his face that says he will shoot if he needs to. There is one other masked man – the only one standing, near all the hostages who are sitting with their backs to the wall. He turns at the sound of the bathroom door, undoubtedly expecting to see his partner in crime step out after investigating the noise from earlier. By the time he realises that the people emerging from the bathroom are not on his side, he is too late. He goes to raise his gun, but John is already holding one ready.

"Don't," he says sharply. "Don't."

It's hard to read the man from body language alone, with his face hidden by a mask, but John can tell from the tension in his shoulders that he is stressed, agitated, because his night is not going to plan. However, he does not immediately pull the trigger, apparently recognising that he will get shot if he tries anything.

Sherlock takes advantage of the masked man's compliance, immediately moving to the hostages, telling them to get up, get out. Many of them are already doing that without being asked – they were on their feet the moment John came out with a gun. Others take a bit more coaxing before they move, shock and fear keeping them all but pinned to the floor.

John doesn't watch Sherlock, keeping his eyes, and his gun, fixed on the masked man. The masked man is still holding the gun in his hands, and John worries that, in his agitation, he might try to take a risk. John does not want him holding the gun for any longer than is necessary. "Put it down," he says. "Slowly."

The man hesitates for two seconds, and John, in response, takes a step closer. "I said," he repeats, his voice low, calm, and steady, "put it down."

There is nothing in John's tone that says he is not completely willing to shoot if push comes to shove. He doesn't want to – there are risks, because people could get caught in the crossfire, and because there are police outside, but John will disregard all of that if his options are shoot or be shot (or, shoot or let someone else be shot). The masked man seems to see this in John's eyes. Slowly, he crouches down, and he puts the gun on the ground.

"Now kick it over," John says, because he's not taking any chances.

The man does, and John catches it with his foot before it can slide out of reach. He keeps one hand on his own gun, keeping it pointed towards the masked man, and at the same time, he crouches down to take the gun from the floor.

The masked man sees his chance and takes it. He dives at John, the movement so sudden and unexpected that John is caught off guard. The man collides with him and knocks him off his feet. John only just manages to kick the man's gun away so that he cannot grab for it, but the man instead goes for the one in John's hand. He's pinning John to the floor, keeping him there, and with one hand, he grabs John's wrist, to stop John from aiming the gun and taking a shot.

John will not let himself be overpowered, not easily. He might not be able to use his gun, or his arms, but he instead tries to use his legs, tries to kick and buck his hips until he can push the man off of him. He manages, but the man shifts his body in a way so that they don't simply switch positions but keep rolling, so that John ends up pinned to the floor once again, and this time, the man is twisting John's wrist in a way that hurts, trying to point the gun towards John's chin.

John is vaguely aware of people shouting, but he cannot focus on any of it. His attention is solely on the masked figure on top of him, and the gun that he is struggling to regain control of. It's a battle that he is losing. He can feel pain in his wrist, with the way the man is twisting it, giving him no choice but to loosen his hold so that the gun can be pried from his fingers.

Then, suddenly, the body above him jerks away, all but flying off of John's body. The gun slides across the floor. For a moment, John doesn't understand what has happened, but then he looks around. Police have swarmed the building, ushering hostages out the door. Two are on the masked figure, forcing his arms behind his back to cuff them. John realises that they Tasered him.

John closes his eyes for a moment and wills his heart rate to slow.

An officer reaches down to offer a hand, which John takes, getting carefully to his feet. His hands are perfectly steady. They don't shake at all.

"Are you hurt?" the officer asks. She needs to shout to be heard over the commotion of the room.

In response, John shakes his head, and then glances over his shoulder towards the bathroom. "There's another one in there," he says, jerking his head towards the masked man. "One of them."

The officer grabs the attention of one of her co-workers, gesturing towards the bathroom, and John decides that the man in the bathroom can be left to their competent hands. He lets himself be ushered out of the building.

Outside, a police perimeter has been set up. Blue and red lights flash against the outside of the building. The small gathering of hostages is outnumbered by the police. Some of them are giving statements. One or two have orange blankets draped over their shoulders.

"John!" someone says, and John looks towards the source of the voice, who turns out to be none other than the man that John himself was looking for. Sherlock rushes over. Behind him, there is a police officer with greying hair, yelling, "Sherlock, I'm not done with you yet!"

Sherlock is apparently ignoring said officer. He reaches John, and asks, "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," John says. "All things considered, he didn't really know how to fight." Which is a lie, in truth – the man had been able to pin John to the floor and keep him from getting up, and had very nearly taken the gun from John's hands. John is lucky the police came in when they did. He continues, "Did you tell the police about the bank?"

Sherlock pulls his phone out of his pocket in response. "Turns out my texts started going through the moment we left the bathroom. Which is fortunate, because if they had been any later, they wouldn't have been able to apprehend the robbers before they got away."

"So they got them?"

Sherlock nods. "They intercepted the getaway car before it could get away."

Behind Sherlock, the greying officer has reached their side. "Sherlock," he says. "I'm still waiting on that explanation."

"You can have my statement in the morning," Sherlock says. "Or, better yet, you can pretend I wasn't here. That only benefits you more, Lestrade – you can take full credit for working out the plan and arresting the criminals."

The man – Lestrade – crosses his arms over his chest. "Your statement isn't what I'm talking about. There's no way that you were here before the hostage situation just by chance."

"That was rather coincidental, wasn't it?"

"Sherlock."

Sherlock looks away, looking more like a child who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar than a fully-grown adult being interrogated by a policeman. John clears his throat awkwardly.

"I'll get out of your way," he starts.

"No," Sherlock says quickly.

John frowns, wondering why Sherlock seems to want him to hang around. Lestrade frowns too, perhaps for the same reason. He looks between Sherlock and John.

"Who's this?" he asks Sherlock finally.

"John," Sherlock supplies. "He's a large part of the reason why all your hostages came out unscathed."

Lestrade raises an eyebrow. "Is that so?" he says, and then he turns towards John. "I am going to need a statement from you as well, obviously."

Sherlock lets out an exasperated sigh at the word 'statement'.

"He's exaggerating, really," John says, glancing over at Sherlock before looking back at Lestrade. "I mean, I didn't really do anything remarkable."

"Sherlock is the most dramatic person I know, but he's also not one to exaggerate other people's actions. His own actions, yes, but if he says you're in any way responsible for saving all these people, then I'd take his word on it. So, thank you."

John ducks his head, but he smiles.

After a moment, Lestrade catches sight of something over John's shoulder – when John follows his gaze, he sees that a couple of the other officers are struggling with one of the masked men (who is no longer masked). Now that John can see his face, he is surprised at how young the man is. What did they all hope to gain from this? Did they really think it would work?

He thinks about how Sherlock had been the one to realise what their plan was, and was the reason that it had been foiled. Maybe it would have worked, if Sherlock hadn't been around.

"Excuse me," Lestrade says, stepping past John so that he can go and deal with the perpetrator. John watches him go, and then lets his eyes wander around the small crowd of people. He can hardly believe the last hour or so was real. It's not the kind of thing that happens in his life. Nothing happens in his life, not anymore.

"Chinese," Sherlock says, drawing John's attention back to him.

"Hm?"

"There's a Chinese restaurant on the corner that stays open until two. Are you hungry?"

John frowns, and glances over his shoulder at where Lestrade is talking to some of the other officers. "Don't we need to give statements?"

"I'm sure our dear Lestrade has enough to keep him busy for the moment being. If we're lucky, he might forget we're here at all."

John frowns.

After a moment of silence, Sherlock says, "Our statements can wait. Besides, we can just claim that we're both in shock."

John raises his eyebrows at the suggestion, and it strikes him how absolutely insane this past hour has been. Since returning from Afghanistan, he's been making his way through a life that has seemed repetitive and boring and dull. After the thrill of Afghanistan, civilian life seemed so mundane, so wrong. And yet, this past hour has made him feel like he was back in Afghanistan again – the situation was completely different, but it gave him that same sense of excitement, sense of meaning, like he was doing something important.

And it's so ridiculous in contrast to the past several months that he can't help but smile.

"What?" Sherlock asks.

John shakes his head. "Nothing. Just thinking about how insane today has been. Things like this don't happen to me."

Sherlock looks John up and down, and a smile grows over his face. "No? This is just another day in my life. Danger tends to follow me." He pauses for a beat, and then adds, "Maybe that means you should stick with me. If danger is what you're looking for."

It's the kind of sentence that would make any normal human being run for the hills.

John, instead, smiles. "You know, I think that might be just what the doctor ordered."


	15. The Claw

**Author's Note:** A million thanks to Becca (Ao3's LlamaWithAPen) for beta-ing!

* * *

Prompt from user Etmire T: _The idiot man ought to know that shouting at the arcade game did not make him any more likely to win._

 **The Claw**

Someone screamed by the pinball machine.

John jumped at the sound, before looking over his shoulder, to the young boy who had just lost his game. When John had first gotten the job at the arcade, he was thrilled. He needed some sort of way to pay for rent and food while he finished his last year of his medicine degree, and working in an arcade seemed far preferable to working in retail or in hospitality like most of the people he studied with. Working in an arcade meant that he did not have to deal with angry customers, and the atmosphere of a place where people go to have fun was definitely preferable. However, the one big problem with the arcade was the noise. Children were either screaming with joy or throwing temper tantrums, and while the former was preferable, both were equally deafening.

At least the child's mother seemed embarrassed on his behalf. She offered John an apologetic smile as she tried to comfort the screaming kid. John smiled back at her, pretending not to be bothered, before looking around. He caught the eye of Mike Stamford, who was in the process of setting up the vacuum cleaner, and he cracked a smile at him.

Mike was the reason why John had gotten this job. They had met through university – both of them were studying medicine together – and John had mentioned to Mike on more than one occasion that he had been in need of a job. When the arcade that Mike worked at started hiring, Mike let John know, and even put in a good word with the managers.

It helped that the two of them got on well, and worked well together. It meant that the managers realised pretty quickly that they made a good team, and so it was common that they were put on shift together. Any shift that Mike was on with him was a good shift, because he enjoyed Mike's company. Shifts like tonight – the late, Friday night shift – were particularly pleasant, because it tended to be only the two of them on. The manager did not work on Friday nights, so there was no one around to tell them off if they took a moment to relax. Sometimes, if the arcade was quiet enough, they could even get away with a game of table hockey before closing time.

They did not have time for a game of table hockey tonight, unfortunately, because of how busy the arcade was. There was less than fifteen minutes left now before the arcade closed, and there were still people in the building. One group of five children (with an equal number of parents or caregivers) were occupying the table hockey game, as they had for the most of the night. It was one of the girls' birthdays, judging by the pink party hat that she was wearing, and spending Friday night at the arcade had been her idea for a party.

The only other person in the arcade who did not belong to the small party of children was a man, who looked to be in his early to mid-twenties. He was not the typical customer, John thought to himself. They got plenty of children and teenagers, but most of the adults who visited the arcade were there with children. This one, however, seemed to be here of his own accord. He had been here for twenty minutes or so now, playing the same game – the claw game. Of all the games that they had to offer, that was probably the most boring – the only point in playing it was to try to win one of the prizes, and they were only ever of value to children who desperately wanted one of the stuffed toys. Adults tended to know that there was a much easier way to get stuffed toys, and it was probably a lot cheaper, given the sheer amount of coins that people can spend trying to win a toy from the claw game over and over and over.

But, this man, for whatever reason, did not seem to know that there were easier and cheaper ways to win toys. He seemed rather determined to win one from the claw game. He had not given up in a good twenty minutes.

"Well, it's one way to spend a Friday night," John said, glancing over at Mike.

Mike grinned and shrugged his shoulders, wordlessly replying, 'Each to his own'.

Behind John, the toy fell out of the claw's grip again. John did not need to look over his shoulder to know that this had happened. The way the man yelled "No, no, _no_!" gave it away. John hid a smile.

"Do you think he knows that shouting at it won't make him any more likely to win?" he teased, and Mike smiled.

"I don't know, maybe it's the secret to success," he said.

John glanced over his shoulder again, to see that the man had pulled another coin from his pocket and was restarting the game again. "He's determined, I'll give him that."

"Ten pounds he goes home tonight empty-handed," Mike said.

John glanced at the clock – five minutes until closing time. Chances were, Mike would win this bet. However, there was something to be said for the way the man was not giving up, and although the claw game was difficult, it certainly wasn't impossible.

"You're on," John said.

The party of children and their mothers were finishing up with their game now. Whether that was because it was past the children's bedtimes or because the man at the claw game was causing commotion, John did not know. Either way, it meant that the families filed their ways out the door, and it left John and Mike alone with their single customer. This meant that there was not much else for John and Mike to do, which meant that they could get away with leaning against the counter and watching the man play the game.

The claw returned to the prize drop without a toy in its grip, but the man was not deterred. He pulled another coin from his pocket, and the game sung as it was restarted once again. They watched as the man gripped the joystick, guiding the claw over to one of the toys, and trying once more to pick it up.

This time, the claw did succeed in grabbing the toy. John could see, when the claw rose into the air, that there was a brown teddy bear attached to it. John could not help but note that the teddy bear looked tattered, compared to the other toys in the game. Perhaps that was part of its appeal.

The claw began its movement from the place where it had collected the toy to the prize drop, and for a moment, it really did look like the man was going to be successful. The toy was in the claw's grip, and John was beginning to think that he was going to go home at the end of the night being ten pounds richer.

Then, right before the claw reached the prize drop, the bear fell from its grip and landed in the pile of toys. The claw returned to the prize drop empty, and John felt a pang of disappointment. He had been so invested in the man's game. He had really thought that he was going to succeed.

"So close," Mike said sympathetically.

To say the man was not pleased was an understatement. He expressed his frustration with the game loudly. He yelled about the game being stupid and childish and undoubtedly rigged. Half of his comments appeared to be directed to the universe at large, while the other half seemed to be directed to the game itself, as though it could hear the man insulting it and would proceed to let him win.

When the man showed no sign of being ready to calm down after a good moment or two, John glanced over at Mike. It was closing time, now, and they needed the man to leave, especially if he was going to behave like an overgrown child.

The look on Mike's face said that he did not want to have to be the one to deal with the man's temper tantrum.

"I'll go talk to him," John said after a pause.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Mike asked. "He might just take his anger out on you."

John shrugged. "I think I can take on an oversized toddler if I need to," he said with a smile, and then sobered and added, "Seriously, though, I'll handle it before he starts kicking the machine."

Mike pursed his lips, looking like he was still unsure if John talking to the man was a good idea, but he nodded his head.

John moved out from the counter, and calmly walked over to the man's side. "Is there a problem?" he asked.

The man turned to him immediately, pointing an accusatory finger at the claw game. "It's rigged," he said.

"It's not, actually," John replied. "It's hard to win, but it's not impossible. A little girl won the dog toy two days ago."

John had said this in the hopes that it would calm the man, but it seemed to only inspire him to try again. He immediately pulled another coin out of his pocket, restarting the game once more. John frowned, glancing over at Mike, before looking at the man again. He gave the man another chance, but when the claw dropped the toy once more before reaching the prize drop, John spoke.

"Look, I do have to let you know that we're getting ready to close," he said. "We'll be open at nine tomorrow morning if you want to come back then."

"No," the man said, and then he pulled another coin out of his pocket.

"Sir..." John began, but the man shook his head shortly.

"I need to do this now," he said. "This is a matter of life and death."

"I think you're being a little bit dramatic."

"No, I mean that quite literally."

The game sung as it was restarted once more, and the man once again gripped the joystick, guiding it to the same, tattered-looking old bear. Now that John could get a proper look at it, he realised that it was the only toy of that appearance within the game. There were plenty of other toys, but that one tattered-looking bear looked quite out of place, alone.

Now that John could see it, he realised that it was not just designed to look like it was tattered and well-loved. It was tattered. Its fur was unevenly coloured, as though it had been dirtied and washed a number of times. It was missing an eye, and there were loose threads where that eye should have been. It did not look like a prize that would be worth even a single coin (should someone succeed in winning it on their first attempt). It did not look like it belonged in there at all.

"That's not one of ours," John said slowly.

"Marvellous observation," said the man.

"Then why is it in there?"

"Someone put it there."

John gave the man a slightly exasperated look. "Well, it wasn't put in there by anyone who works for us," he said. "It should not be in there. So why is it?" He paused for a beat, and then asked, "Is it yours?"

"Technically speaking, yes, it is intended for me," said the man. "But it is not mine in the sense that it belonged to me before now."

The man's answers just seemed to be leaving John with more questions. He looked over his shoulder at Mike, giving him a look that said 'I have no idea what's going on'. Mike's equally confused expression and the shrug of his shoulders said that Mike was having no more luck making sense of the situation than John was.

When the man failed, again, to grab the toy, John spoke. "If someone's put it there, then it's not technically our prize to let someone win. Let me grab the key, I'll open it up and get it for-"

The man cut him off with a sharp shake of his head. "No, I need to win it," he said. "He'll know if I don't. He'll consider it cheating."

"Who?" John asked. The man ignored him, pulling yet another coin out of his pockets (had he stocked up on coins before coming?) and restarting the game again. This time, John put his hand over the joystick before the man could start. "Look, I need a good reason why I should let the arcade stay open, and let you stay here. So, you better explain yourself."

"You're wasting my time," the man said. "I told you, this is a life or death situation."

"Then explain _that_."

The man pursed his lips, an obvious expression of frustration coming across his face. John did not move his hand from the joystick, and after a moment, the game timed out, the claw descending where it was (still hanging above the prize drop). If the man had a good reason for being here, then John would pay him back the single coin that he had spent on the game that John had stopped him from playing.

There was a moment where neither of them spoke, both staring at each other in some sort of test of wills, but eventually, the man seemed to realise that John was not going to move his hand and let him go back to the game without some answers. So, the man took in a deep breath, and then started explaining himself.

"Consider it a treasure hunt, of sorts," he said. "There's a man who has been leaving puzzles, like clues telling me where to go next. The most recent clue has told me that I need to get that particular toy out of the game."

"And you have to win it? You can't just let me get it out for you."

The man nodded. "Precisely. It's against the rules."

"Okay," John said slowly, and then glanced up at the clock on the wall. It was past closing time now. He had really wanted to get out of here on time. "The toy will still be there tomorrow morning."

"It can't wait until tomorrow morning. This isn't a game, by your definition. The prize is the safe rescue of two children who have been kidnapped from their school."

John's eyes widened. "What?"

"You heard correctly. Now, I'm sure you recognise how important it is that I get back to the game right away."

"Shouldn't we call the police?"

"The police know. I'm sure they'll be here shortly – I did leave them a message informing them that this arcade was their next destination."

A part of John thought that this was far too insane. There was no way that the man could be serious. At the same time, however, surely no one would lie about something that extreme. Surely no sane human being would lie about children being kidnapped just so that they could play an arcade game.

John looked around the arcade, looking over at Mike (who, though still at the counter, was close enough to hear their conversation and was looking just as alarmed as John felt) before looking back at the man. "You keep saying about how opening the game up would be against the rules," he said. With the knowledge that there were two children being held somewhere, for an undetermined length of time, John did not need to ask what the punishment for breaking the rules meant. Instead, he asked, "How would he know?"

"His network is more extensive than you might expect," the man said. "His puzzles and clues have all served the purpose of showing that to us, proving to us that he has more resources than we might have originally been prepared for. He has contacts, for one. Anyone could be watching the building, watching to see that I am doing what he wants me to do." He tilted his head to the side, and looked up at the ceiling. John followed his gaze to the security camera on the corner. The man said, "He could easily be watching me play this himself."

John rubbed his hands over his face – and, of course, in doing so, he pulled his hand away from the joystick. The man did not hesitate to put another coin in the coin slot and restart the game. John made no effort to stop him.

John glanced over at Mike, and then looked back at the man. "I'm taking your word on all of this," he said. "If you're lying about this..."

"While I will not deny manipulating situations for the desired outcomes, I would not lie about this. I would not lie simply so that I could play a game as _stupid_ as this," – he punctuated the word 'stupid' by pressing the button on the game with a little more forcefully than necessary – "for my own enjoyment. I would not be playing this game if it were not absolutely necessary."

John took in a breath, and nodded his head. "Okay," he said. The man could stay here for as long as he needed. If children's lives were at stake, then that was more important than closing time.

Fortunately, they did not need to wait several hours after closing time before the man finally had success. The claw game was difficult, but with enough determination (and enough coins), anyone could win it eventually. It was about fifteen minutes after the time that they were supposed to close. John had flipped the sign on the door to make sure that no one else would come in, and he had told Mike that, if Mike wanted to head home for the night, John could handle this by himself. Of course, Mike had promptly replied that he wasn't going anywhere, which was probably partially because he did not want to leave John by himself with a man who could be dangerous (depending on how truthful he was being), and partially because this situation was more interesting than any of the things they could be studying if they went home for the night.

The claw descended into the pile of toys, and closed around the tattered bear. After so many near-successes, the bear had been moved into a position where it was more easily reached, sitting on top of the pile of toys and allowing the claw to grab onto it. The grip was precarious – as the claw began to move towards the prize drop, the bear slipped, hanging onto the claw by only a paw. But it was enough. The claw reached the prize drop and opened, and the bear fell down the chute.

The victory came more as a time for relief rather than a time for joy. John let out a sigh, but the man did not seem nearly as relaxed, not yet. He reached into his pocket – the same pocket from which he had been pulling out a seemingly endless supply of coins – and pulled out a pair of plastic gloves. John wondered if the coat's pockets were as bottomless as Mary Poppin's bag. The man put the gloves on before he reached into the prize drop and collected the bear. He held it as though it were something delicate and fragile, inspecting it from every angle. To John, it looked like a perfectly ordinary, well-loved teddy bear. He wondered if the man could see something he could not.

The sound of the door opening caught his attention, and he turned around to tell the newcomer that they were closed, before seeing that the newcomer was not a child who had come to play a game. It was a police officer.

The officer in question did not pay any attention to either John or Mike. His sights were immediately set for the man with the teddy bear.

"Sherlock," he said, and John took a step back, suddenly feeling like maybe the man was not to be trusted, maybe he was not the one following the clues sent by a criminal mastermind but instead one who worked with the criminal mastermind himself.

However, the man – Sherlock, apparently – did not appear at all alarmed by the presence of the policeman. "Ah, Lestrade," he said calmly. "It's about time."

"How many times have I told you, you can't keep running off like this."

"If I waited for you, you'd be investigating a murder instead of a kidnapping," he said, and then he held up the bear. "I believe this belongs to one of the children. He clearly believes that there is something we can do with it to lead us to him."

"Why would he give us a clue that could lead us to him? He's playing games with us."

"Yes, he is. And he wants his fifteen minutes of fame. He'll lead us to the children as long as we follow his rules." He pulled out a plastic bag from his pockets (John wondered, once again, if they were bottomless) and carefully put the bear inside. "I'm taking this to Bart's. Feel free to meet me there if you have nothing better to do."

"Sherlock—" the officer began, but Sherlock paid no attention to him. He walked straight past John, straight past the officer, and out the door. The officer looked exasperated for a moment, but then he followed.

The door swung shut behind them, leaving John and Mike in the empty arcade, the silence only broken by the music from the different games. John looked over at Mike.

"What... the hell just happened?" he asked.

"I have no idea," Mike said, and then pointed to the floor beside the claw game. "I think that fell out of the man's pocket."

John followed his gaze to what, at first, seemed like a scrap of paper. As he got closer, however, he realised it was not ordinary paper, but a photograph. He picked it up, frowning at it.

It was the claw game, though it was taken up close – too close – to the claw in question. It made it almost impossible to tell what it was. If John had not spent the past half hour or so staring at this game, he might not have been able to tell.

"He said that this man was leaving clues," he said to Mike. "This must have been the clue to come here."

He turned it over in his hands. On the back, in blue pen, were the following words:

 _Have fun. Moriarty xx_

He stared at it for a moment, and then shook his head slowly. His life was never this weird.

"He said he was going to Bart's, right?" He asked Mike, and when Mike nodded his head, he said, "I better go return this."


	16. The Blue Dragon

**Author's Note:** This fic is a combination of two prompts, both by user Etmire T. I had to take some liberties with the second prompt to make it work, but when I started planning my fic for the first prompt, it took a mind of its own and I had to include both. The second prompt will be included in an author's note at the end of this fic, as it gives away a small part of this fic that would otherwise come as a surprise.

A million thanks to Becca (Ao3's LlamaWithAPen) for just generally being a brilliant human being.

* * *

Prompt #1 _: It's only a matter of time before the egg cracks and the thing becomes as large as an elephant and I really don't want to pay the fees to rent a crane and get it out of my bedroom. Do you mind dropping this off at the edge of the forest? Thanks._

 **The Blue Dragon**

Harry was the one who had found it.

She did not even know what it was, at the time. She would have never seen one before. It was rare for anyone to see one – they were usually so heavily guarded. Harry claimed that she had found it when she was out collecting fruit, but John was not sure he believed that. Surely a mother would not leave her eggs unguarded, somewhere where a young woman could so easily find it and take it away.

Harry had not told John about it straight away. Perhaps she would not have told John about it at all, had John not found it himself when he was looking for the bow that Harry had stolen from him. It was her own fault that she had given him incentive to search through her belongings.

He had confronted her about it immediately. _Why is there a dragon egg under your bed?_

Any attempt she would have made to deny that she knew what he was talking about faded at the words. John had seen her eyes go wide.

 _Dragon egg? I thought it was a stone!_

 _A stone that big? Don't be daft, Harry. Where did you find it?"_

 _Nowhere! It was just outside the forest. What do we do with it?_

 _We can't keep it. Ma will kill us both, if it doesn't burn the entire house down when it sneezes._

 _Maybe we can train it._

 _Are you joking? It'll be the size of a small elephant when it hatches, and it will only get bigger after that. We need to get rid of it. You need to take it back to where you found it?_

 _Can you do it?_

 _Excuse me?_

 _Can you take it back to the forest?_

 _Why do_ I _have to take it? It's your egg! You were the one who found it!_

 _Yes, but Ma will get suspicious if I'm not home when she gets here._

 _So you want to pin it on me instead?_

 _You're the favourite child. Besides, you're out late more often than I am. She'll be more likely to believe you if you tell her you were out, I don't know, hunting or something._

 _Harry._

 _Please._

Harry had punctuated the word with her best, most pathetic facial expression, and John, being the best brother in the world, had given in.

That was why he was here, with a bag on his back that was so heavy it made his shoulders ache, trekking his way down the rocky path to the forest. The sun was beginning to sink low on the horizon, the last of its red-orange glow beginning to disappear. If it had been up to John, he would have gone first thing in the morning, to give him enough time to get to the forest and back before dark. However, John was no dragon egg expert, and he had no way of knowing how long they had before this thing hatched. Harry said she had found it weeks ago, and who knew how long it had been sitting in the forest before she found it? To leave it one more night before he took it back to the forest risked letting it hatch under Harry's bed during the night and waking up to a living, (fire)-breathing baby dragon – or not waking up at all.

At least John knew the path well, he thought to himself. Even if it did get dark, he knew this route. He could walk it with his eyes closed. He would stick to the path as much as he could, and he would not wander too far into the forest. And he had his bow, just in case.

He was not entirely certain what he was going to do when he finally reached the forest. What should he do? Should he just leave the dragon egg and flee the scene before anyone saw him? Or, should he try to hide it somewhere, so that no one else made the same mistake that Harry had made, believing it was a stone and taking it home? The latter idea sounded like the right thing to do, but at the same time, if anyone did make Harry's mistake, it was not John's problem. He was not responsible for the actions of complete strangers.

(He would just be responsible for the situation that led them to those actions).

The sound of footsteps on the rocky path ahead of John made John start, and he had the sudden, illogical desire to duck out of sight and hide until the person (no, the two people – there were two sets of footsteps) passed. He shook away the thought and kept walking. He was doing nothing wrong. There was no curfew, no law against walking on this path. No one would suspect that the reason why his bag was bulging out against his back was because there was a dragon egg inside.

He kept walking, and unsurprisingly, the two people passed him by with no more than a glance and a nod of acknowledgement. John's shoulders sagged just a little in relief once they were out of sight.

There was only a little bit further to walk, now. He could see the forest approaching. The sun had not yet set – he could go a little way into the forest, leave the egg where it would be hidden from anyone walking down the path, and get out before dark. He would undoubtedly end up walking home in the dark, but that was all right. The path was safe, and he would be fine. As long as he was out of the forest before sunset, he would be fine.

The wind rustled gently through the trees. During the day, John always found the sound nice and peaceful. Now, the sound was more ominous than anything else. He had never seen the forest this close after dark. He knew better than to explore that far from home. He had heard the stories. Young children wandering off at night and never coming back. Growls coming from somewhere deep in the shadows, savage animals that would lunge and attack at the first opportunity. Bandits lurking in the dark, waiting to steal from those who strayed too far from the path.

John pushed the thoughts out of his mind. He would be fine. He told himself that they were just stories, and that it did not mean that any harm would come to him, although he could not help but think that there was an element of truth to those tales. Stories tended to become more and more fantastic the more that they were told – the harmless story of a child wandering through the forest could become the story of a child lured to her death by a witch's spell in the night – but that did not mean that a child had not gone missing at night. The animals that were described deep in the forest might not be quite as nightmarish as they were said to be, but it was a fact that there were animals in there, and those animals could, and would, kill if given the opportunity. People had died in that forest. That was a fact.

He reached the outskirts of the forest and came to a stop. Even though the sun had not disappeared below the horizon, the density of the forest trees did not let any of the light in. The sight of it was like something from a bad dream. It made John even more tempted to just leave the egg where he was and run home to the safety of his bed. However, leaving it here was the wrong thing to do and he knew it. It wasn't just that someone could take it home with them. There was more to it than that. If the egg hatched here, the dragon might follow people on the path back to the village. The dragon could kill someone, or burn the entire village down. That much was a risk if someone else found it and took it home, too.

He looked over his shoulder. There was no one around, unsurprisingly. It was too close to night time now. Most people would be clever enough to go home, to the village, where there were lights, and people, and less danger. But no, here was John, being that one idiot who was putting himself in danger, because Harry had been stupid enough to take a dragon egg home with her one day.

He could do this. He _could_ do this. He just had to make his way into the forest, just a little way in, drop the egg somewhere beneath a tree, somewhere relatively out of sight, and then he could get out and run home and forget this whole thing ever happened. With any luck, Mummy Dragon would find her egg, take it back to her dragon home, and raise her child, safely inside the forest where they would cause harm to no humans (but for the few stupid ones who wandered too far into the forest, but you could hardly blame the dragon for that).

He took a deep breath, looked over his shoulder one more time, and then stepped into the forest. He was on high alert for even the slightest of noises, for the smallest indication that he was not alone and that there was something else there that he should fear. The hairs on his arms stood up, and goosebumps prickled over his skin even though the weather was hardly cold. At the first rustle of leaves, he turned, whirling around, before his conscious mind caught up with his unconscious instincts and pointed out that it was nothing more than the wind. He did not feel stupid for his overreaction. It was a good thing, to be on high alert. He would rather a few false alarms than to make a mistake when there was something real.

He moved further into the forest, but he made sure not to go too far in. If he did, the trees would be too dense to let in even the light of the setting sun, leaving him in pitch-black darkness. He kept glancing over his shoulder to make sure he could still see what remained of the warm red-orange glow. He walked in a straight line as much as possible, because the last thing he needed was to get lost taking unnecessary twists and turns.

There was another rustle through the leaves, and John paused mid-step, listening. There was no sound that followed it – it must have been the wind once more.

He took another step, and then another, and then froze once again. That time, the rustle of leaves was definitely not caused by the wind.

There was something in the trees.

He tilted his head to the side and listened, but there was no sound. Whatever was in the tree had to be clever enough to know that John was listening for him and knew to keep quiet, to stop moving at the same time that John did.

He pretended to dismiss it again, and took another couple of steps. However, John most definitely had not dismissed the sound. Instead, he was listening carefully, not only to confirm that there was something in the trees that was following him, but also to work out which tree it was hiding in.

 _There_.

A couple of steps later, there was another rustle, behind him and to the right.

He turned quickly, and in the same movement, he was pulling an arrow from his bag, pulling it back against the string of his bow, pointing it towards the tree where the sound had come from.

There was no sound, and no movement. Whatever – or whoever – was up there was silent, watching, waiting. John's gaze flickered over the tree, looking for shadows or movement in the trees.

When nothing happened for a moment, John spoke. "I know you're there," he said. "Show yourself." He kept his tone calm, hard, like a man who had no hesitations when it came to firing an arrow in the forest. He did not want to, of course – John had no desire to kill if it was avoidable, and did not want to harm a being that he could not even see – but whatever it was did not need to know that John's unspoken threat would not quickly be followed through.

There was movement again, and John followed the sound with his bow and arrow, shifting his aim. He managed to catch a glimpse of something as it jumped, gracefully, from the branch of one tree to another. It had two legs, and looked human, but John did not have the opportunity to take a very good look. He drew the arrow back and aimed it at the tree branch where the figure had landed.

"You have three seconds to come down before I shoot," he said calmly. "One. Two..."

There was the sound of rustling again, and then the figure appeared. It was human, John realised. It – no, he – grabbed onto the branch and swung down to hang off it, before dropping to the ground, landing in a perfect crouch before straightening to his full height.

The person was a young man – almost a boy, really, maybe a few years younger than John. He was taller than John was, but had that youthful brightness in his eyes. John's arrow was still pointing at him – he had followed the boy's movements with his aim – but surprisingly, the boy did not look afraid. In fact, if anything, he looked unimpressed, or bored. He looked at the arrow distastefully.

"You're not going to hurt me," he said calmly, without a hint of doubt in his voice. John did not lower his bow, but the man was right. What harm could this person do to him? This wasn't some unintelligent being who would act on instincts, who John would need to kill in order to save himself. This was a human, who could think and feel and live instead of merely surviving, and John was not a heartless killer. John would never hurt someone if there was another option.

However, John would defend himself if it ever became necessary, at whatever price. So, he did not immediately lower the bow, instead asking, "What makes you so sure?"

The man looked unconcerned. "You armed yourself when you thought I was something that would hurt you. The look on your face when I came down says you were surprised to see what I was, and your moral compass forbids you from causing me unnecessary harm. You're already relaxing the bow – have you noticed? You're trying to act like you're still on high alert, but you're not. Poor form, really. Put the bow down, or you'll cause unnecessary strain."

John hesitated, but then he lowered the bow, though he did not return the arrow to his bag. "What are you doing out here?" he asked, glancing towards the trees from which the young man had jumped. Was he here alone, or was he here with a bunch of friends, who thought this was all part of a game?

"I could ask you the same question," said the man. "You know better than to walk this way at night."

"You should know better too," John said. "The forest isn't safe after sunset. You should be at home."

"I am at home."

"Don't be silly. No one lives in a forest. You'd be torn apart in the middle of the night while you were sleeping."

"A human would, yes."

John frowns, narrowing his eyes and looking the man up and down. Two arms, two legs, one head. His skin was pale, but not unnaturally so. The only thing that did not look completely ordinary were his bright eyes – John had never seen eyes that were quite like his before – but they were not an abnormal colour. If they were red, or gold, it might suggest that there was more to him than met the eye, but they were not. His eyes were a fascinating mixture of blue and green and grey, but all those colours were entirely normal for a human.

And yet, the young man was standing before him with his eyebrows raised, as though he was expecting John to pick up on something obvious.

"You're... not human?" John asked slowly.

The man rolled his eyes, but the corners of his lips turned up into a smirk. He did not reply, but instead started walking in a slow circle around John, forcing John to turn on the spot to keep his eyes on the man. John's grip tightened on his bow, but he did not raise it again.

"Now," the boy said calmly. "What is someone like you doing in the forest? You would not be here if it was not important. Obviously, it was something that could not wait until morning, otherwise you would have kept your distance until sunrise. It would not have made that much difference to the lighting – this forest is dark even in the middle of the day – but you would be safer, because the more dangerous creatures would be hidden away or sleeping. Most of them are nocturnal. The were-creatures are diurnal, of course, but in the sunlight they would be in their more... intelligent forms."

"Is that what you are?" John asked. "A were-creature?"

"No," the man replied. There was something almost playful in his tone, like this was some sort of game to him. "If I were a were-creature, I would be starting to shift now, wouldn't I?"

"Are you a shapeshifter, then?" John asked. "One who can shift whenever they want, rather than being controlled by the sun?"

The young man hummed, sounding amused. "You seem to be working on the assumption that I currently look human, and thus, must be in a 'human form'." He finished a full circle, and then came to a stop in front of John. "You would have much more success if you considered the idea that this is my sole, natural form, and it is not a human one."

John frowned, looking over the man again. Was there something he was missing that wasn't quite human, some feature that should have given his true identity away? In his head, he started listing creatures that shared similar features to humans. Could this be a vampire? He was certainly pale-skinned, as vampires were, but John had not seen a flash of fangs when he smiled, so that could not be right. Perhaps he could be a satyr. He glanced down at the young man's trousers, trying to work out if they were hiding furry legs beneath them, but that immediately realised that that idea was wrong as well. The young man was bare-footed, and he definitely did not have hooves.

After a moment, the young man decided to give John a clue. He did not speak, but he raised a hand and ran it through his mop of dark curls, brushing them out of the way for just long enough for John to catch a glimpse of one of his ears.

One _pointed_ ear.

John had seen pictures of elves in books and framed on walls in galleries. He had heard stories of their connection with nature, their powers over the natural elements, their grace when they moved. However, he had never seen an elf in person. As far as he was aware, no one from his generation had, because elves were extinct.

They had been told the stories in lessons, time and time again. Elves were one with nature, lived with nature, but nature was often so temperamental and dangerous. There had been forest fires, tsunamis, hurricanes. Many beings, from many species, had died from events like those, but elves were among the species that got the worst of it. And that was not to mention the wars – elves were a peaceful species, or so the stories told, and so they did not fight, even when they were attacked. They were hardly a large species to begin with; John had been told that their species had gone extinct long before John's lifetime.

There was no way a real, living elf was standing before him. He could not be real.

"No way," John breathed.

The pointy-eared man raised his eyebrows and lowered his hand, letting his hair fall back over his ears.

When the man did not speak, John shook his head and said, "No, you can't be an elf. They're extinct."

The man stretched out his arms as though to say, _And yet, here I am._ "Obviously not."

"But..." John started slowly. "We learnt about you. The fires, the war – how can you be real?"

"You are correct in believing we are an endangered species," the young man said calmly. "But to say that none of us exist anymore is inaccurate. We choose to keep our distance from your species, for our own self-preservation." He paused for a moment, and then added, "Really, it's foolish of your kind to hold onto this belief that my species has died out, while never venturing too far into the forest to see that that is really true. It is a mistake to theorise without all the facts."

John looked around. "So, there are more of you in here?" he asked.

In response, the young man – the elf – raised his eyebrows and smirked.

After a moment, the elf returned to walking in a slow circle around John, just as he had been doing earlier. "Now that your question has been answered, I have one of my own," he said. "What is someone like you doing in a forest at this time of day?" He glanced over John's shoulder, and then added, "Although, day is not quite the correct term."

John glanced towards the edge of the forest. The last few streaks of sunlight were filtering through the trees, but it would not last much longer. It was going to be dark very, very soon.

The realisation made John worry. A part of him desperately wanted to stay here and talk to this elf – to meet a member of a species that was supposedly extinct was fascinating – but at the same time, he knew better than to stay in the forest after dark. This elf seemed friendly, but that wasn't to say that the other creatures in this forest would be.

He could come back during the day, when it was safer. Maybe, if he was very, very lucky, he might run into this elf again. After all, the elf lived here in the forest. It was not as though he would be gone if John came back in the sunlight.

"It's late," he said, going to step past the elf. There was a tree a few steps away, whose roots stuck in odd places around its base. If he put the egg there, it would stay, as though it were held by a nest. It would not roll away. It might even hide it a little – but the egg was bright blue, so any creature in the forest that was not colour blind would be drawn to it because of that alone.

However, the elf held no interest in letting John go easily. He did not allow John to step past, instead stepping in front of him to block his path.

"That," the elf said, "does not answer my question."

"I just came to drop something off," John said, because it's the truth, even though it's vague. "I need to get home before it gets dark. Move, please."

The elf did not move.

"I really need to go," John said after another attempt at getting past. "I'm sure you're quite happy to live here, but I'd really rather not get torn limb from limb if I can help it. Let me go."

"Mmm, no," the elf said, in a voice that was more playful and child-like than it should have been in a dark forest. "This is far more interesting. I'd rather know what a human like you would need to drop off in the forest at this time of night."

John swung his bag off his back, suddenly overwhelmed with the need to protect the egg inside of it. There was something mischievous in the elf's eyes, and John was unsure if he would leave the egg be, or if he would try to do something with it. John had heard that there were species of fae that were playful and cheeky, fae who would get people into trouble and cause harm not with the intention of being harmful, but with the intention of having fun. Who was to say that elves like the one who stood before him were not the same?

The elf glanced down at the bag in John's hands, that same, mischievous smile growing on his face. "What could possibly be so important that you had to drop it off in the forest, right this minute, so close to sunset? It's obviously urgent." He took a step closer, and John held his ground, resisting the temptation to take a step back. "It's heavy, obviously. Round. Smooth. Now, I can't see _through_ your bag, but if I judge by the shape alone, I'd say it might be an egg. A big egg, definitely. Maybe a dragon egg?"

John carefully kept his expression blank, his instincts telling him to hide any other reaction, avoid giving anything away, but he knew there was no point. The elf had not made a lucky guess – he knew. There was no way that John could convince the elf that he was wrong.

He tightened his grip on the bag so that the elf couldn't make any attempt at snatching the bag away from him. "How can you tell?" he asked quietly after a pause. "Big, round, and smooth isn't that much to go off. It could have been a stone."

"It could have, yes," the elf concedes. "It was a bit of a shot in the dark, but clearly it was a good one. I happen to know that a dragon egg went missing from a cave nearby here several weeks ago. Now, you turn up at sunset with a large object in your bag that definitely matches the egg in size and shape – probably safe to say the two are related."

John frowned, glancing down at his bag. "Harry said she found it by the forest, not by a cave," he said quietly.

"I expect she did," the elf said. "I do not believe she was the one who took it. It was taken by a group of men, along with as much gold and treasure as they could carry. They were probably too stupid to realise what the egg actually was. Once they worked it out, though, they left it here by the forest, and that would have been when your sister found it."

John looked down at the bag again. "I thought if I took it back to the forest, I was taking it home."

In response, the elf raised his eyebrows, an amused look coming over his face. "You believed the dragon lived in the forest? You do realise how large they are, don't you? They would have great difficulty moving about thought the threes without taking the forest down with them."

John grimaced. Now that the elf pointed it out, it should have been obvious. Had he thought about it, he would have known that there was no way that this was where the dragon lived. He felt stupid for making that mistake.

He could not leave the egg here, for more reason than one. It would not be found by its mother, here. Few creatures could survive as babies without their mothers. Leaving the egg here made it likely that the only beings who would find it would be predators, who could damage the egg before the dragon hatched, or harm the dragon when it did. When the dragon woke, it would be alone.

And if it was not harmed by something else in the forest, then it would cause harm. It would be big even when it hatched. It could cause damage to the forest and harm to the creatures within it. And that was to say nothing of the risk of it burning the place down should it let out a breath of fire.

Oh, it should have been _obvious_ that a forest was the wrong habitat for a giant, fire-breathing creature. John was an idiot.

The elf seemed to have followed John's train of thought. He was watching John with that mischievous expression on his face.

"You know," he said after a moment of silence, giving John long enough to have considered the likely outcomes of abandoning the egg in the forest. "The cave isn't far from here."

John turned to stare at him. "You've got to be joking."

The elf grinned. "No," he said. "It's the logical course of action. I know you've come to the obvious conclusion – if you leave the egg here, it will get hurt, or it will hurt someone else. The expression on your face says you don't want that to happen. The only way you can ensure that the dragon hatches and survives, and does not cause unnecessary harm to anyone in this forest, is to take it to where it belongs."

"It also ensures that I get roasted alive by a fire-breathing dragon," John pointed out.

"Not necessarily. Dragons are diurnal. She'll be asleep. If you are careful, you can get in and out of her cave without waking her."

"That sounds like the most insane plan I've ever heard."

"Maybe so, but it's not an impossible one. The men who stole the egg were able to do so without waking her, weren't they?"

John glanced down at the egg, and thought about the dragon inside. Dragons were dangerous, yes, but they were not cruel and heartless. The people who had been harmed by dragons were those who had intended to harm the dragons themselves, or to steal from them. Dragons would protect their possessions, but they would not seek out innocent victims.

The unborn dragon in the egg in John's bag had never caused harm to anyone. It did not deserve to be left to die.

John glanced towards the edge of the forest. There was no sunlight left now. This was beginning to feel like the most insane night that John had ever had.

He glanced at the elf, and let out a sigh. "Fine," he said. "Where's the cave?"

The elf's face broke out into a grin. It seemed this was the response that he was hoping for. John was not sure why that was the case, except that, perhaps, the elf thought it would be funny for John to risk his life returning a dragon's egg.

"It's not far," the elf said. "I'll show you."

"You'd better," John said, swinging the bag back onto his back again. "I'm not going to a dragon's cave by myself."

"I wouldn't expect you to," said the elf, "and I'm in need of something to do. I can feel my brain rotting from the boredom of the forest. Come." He stepped past John, moving towards the outskirts of the forest, and John took a deep breath, shook his head, and then followed.

They left the forest, and John let the elf lead the way to the cave. The roads were quiet, now. Most people were not stupid enough to be out late at night. Perhaps that was part of the reason why the elf was happy to follow him, despite being a member of a species that had managed to hide its existence from humans for so long.

"What's your name?" John asked after a moment or so of silent walking. He saw the elf glance at him out of the corner of his eye.

"Sherlock," the elf said.

"Sherlock," John repeated. "I'm John. Just letting you know, Sherlock, that if you get me killed, I am going to haunt you for the rest of eternity."

The corners of the elf's – Sherlock's – lips pulled up into a smirk.

They rounded a bend, and now John could see the cave that they were approaching. Without even a hint of sunlight, the sight of the cave, and the path that led to it, was ominous and creepy. Nothing about the cave was welcoming: it screamed _Danger: Something evil lurks inside_. On any other day, if John saw a cave like this, he would choose another path. He hoped his sister appreciated the things that he put himself through for her sake.

The elf did not keep them both on the path, but strayed off to the side, so that they were not directly approaching the mouth of the cave. This meant that, if the dragon was awake, she would not see them coming. They came to a stop a few metres from the cave, and Sherlock turned towards him.

"There you go," the elf said, an amused-looking expression on his face.

"You're not coming in with me?" John whispered.

"Of course not. One set of footsteps has a far higher chance of going undetected than two sets."

A sick feeling began to unfurl in John's stomach. He glanced towards the cave, and ten looked back at the elf. "Maybe you should be the one to go in there," he said. "You did a great job of sneaking around in those trees before I caught you. You're probably quieter than I am."

"I'm not the one whose sister was careless enough to take a dragon egg home with her. I believe that makes it your responsibility."

"Why, are you too scared to do it yourself?"

"Are you?"

John decided not to answer that, because the truth would be too obvious no matter what he said.

He glanced towards the cave and took a deep breath. He could do this. He _could_ do this. Get in, leave the egg, get out. He didn't even have to go far – he could leave the egg just inside the cave's entrance, and surely the dragon mother would find it then. How hard could it be?

He took his bag off his back and took out the egg carefully. He did not need anything to lengthen the amount of time that he spent in the cave – he did not want to be fiddling around taking the egg out of his bag while he was inside. He made sure his arrows were in an easily-reachable position before swinging the bag back onto his back again.

"You can leave that out here, you know," Sherlock said. "Your arrows won't do much against a dragon."

John had feared that much, but he shook his head nonetheless. "It gives me a sense of security."

"It'll only weigh you down."

John thought about leaving the bag with the elf and sneaking inside the cave empty-handed, save for the egg. He might be able to move faster. Then, he thought about how mischievous elves were said to be, and wondered if doing this would just mean that he would emerge from the cave and find both the elf and his bag gone.

The elf raised his eyebrows, a playful sort of smile growing on his face. "You think I might steal it," he said.

"Won't you?"

Sherlock tilted his head to the side. "I suppose you got this idea from the same people who told you that my species was extinct?"

John glanced down at his shoes, but decided it was not worth the risk anyway.

"Wish me luck," he said after a moment, turning to look towards the cave.

"There's no such thing."

"You're a real comfort."

He shifted his bag on his back, took a deep breath in an attempt to slow his rapid heartbeat, and then he approached the cave.

A part of John wanted to run, to get in and out as fast as he could. He wanted to sprint to the entrance, throw the egg as though it was a ball (surely, with its size, it would not shatter if he did that), and run away before he was seen. However, he knew that if he aimed for speed, he would sacrifice silence, and making too much noise risked him being burnt to a crisp by one hot breath from the dragon, before he even had time to gasp.

He crept to the cave's entrance, and then glanced over his shoulder to where the elf stood. Sherlock was still there, watching as though this was some kind of play for his amusement. John wondered if Sherlock was actually getting anything out of this – beyond a relief to the boredom he had complained of earlier.

John took a deep breath, and then he entered the cave.

The first thing he saw was gold. Lots of gold. Dragons were known to be hoarders, and he could see now what that word really meant. Gold and jewels and various other treasures were scattered through the cave. It is no wonder that the men who had stolen the egg had come here. Even John could not stop his mind from wandering to how much even a small portion of this treasure would mean to his family. Even John wanted to reach out and grab just a few pieces of gold while he could, to stuff them into his bag before he left. He resisted the temptation, however. He knew better than to take that risk. He had one job here: to leave the egg and get out. He was not here to take.

He dragged his eyes away from the piles of gold to look towards the dragon. She was sitting on top of her collection of treasure, curled upon it as though it was a nest. Even curled up as she was, she was several metres long. John knew that dragons were enormous, but it was breathtaking to see that up close. John had never seen a dragon before, aside from in pictures: the closest thing John had ever seen was a shadow as a dragon passed in front of the sun.

Now, up close, John could see the light blue colour of her scales, which almost seemed to reflect the treasures around her. He could see the individual scales on her body, see the way the shade of blue was not constant but was rather a mixture of different shades - darker around her neck, lighter at the top of her head. He could see the spikes on her back and tail, and he could see the claws that rested upon the piles of jewels.

John knew he should get in and out as quickly as possible, but just for a moment – a few seconds, no more – he allowed himself to stop and stare. Yes, the dragon was dangerous, deadly, but at the same time, he could not help but be awestruck by how majestic and how beautiful she looked up close.

He did not allow himself to gaze at her for long. He looked around her pile of treasures, looking to see if there were any other eggs nearby. He had never taken the time to properly study dragons, and so he was not sure if they tended to lay multiple eggs at once, or just one. The latter explanation seemed likely – he could not see any other eggs in the cave – but it was possible that they were hidden. Perhaps she was sitting on them.

Regardless, John was not going to creep up close to her to put the egg near her body. If there were no eggs nearby that were easy for John to get to, then he would just leave the egg where he was and get out. He took two quiet steps towards the cave wall and crouched down slowly, delicately placing the egg among the treasures. He kept his eyes on the dragon as he did, but she did not stir, the rise and fall of her back constant with her slow breathing. John himself held his breath, not wanting to make a single sound if he could avoid it. He straightened slowly, the egg now safely returned to where it belonged. The dragon would wake when the sun rose, and she would find her egg safe within her reach. The dragon child would grow up with a mother to care for it.

John took a step backwards, and then another, backing towards the exit. He did not want to turn his back on the dragon, in case she stirred while he was not looking. Fortunately, she seemed to be sleeping peacefully. She looked calm, relaxed.

John took another step backwards, and something crunched beneath his foot.

John did not look down to see what pile of treasure he had carelessly stepped upon. His eyes remained locked on the dragon, just as one ice-blue eye opened.

 _Run_.

John did not give himself a moment to think. He no longer needed to be quiet, he only needed to be fast. He spun around and bolted for the cave's entrance.

Behind him, he could hear the sound of clattering as coins and other gold treasures slid over each other, telling him that the dragon had gotten to her feet. The sound immediately wiped John's mind of any hope that maybe, just maybe, the dragon hadn't really seen him, or at least would not try to follow him. Apparently, his hope there was misplaced. He sprinted out of the cave and immediately made a beeline for where he had left the elf – who was still there, watching, waiting.

"Run!" he yelled, but he had reached Sherlock's side before the elf had time to react. John did not hesitate or slow down - he grabbed the elf's hand as he passed, forcing Sherlock to either run alongside him or trip over his own feet. Fortunately, Sherlock chose the former – he stumbled a little at first, but was quick to regain his footing. John released his hand as soon as he knew that he was not going to be leaving the elf behind, and then they were running side by side.

"You were supposed to be quiet!" Sherlock yelled.

"I tried!" John yelled back.

They followed the same path that they had taken to reach the cave in the first place. Behind them, John could hear the dragon roar – or screech, it was hard to define the exact sound that a dragon made. Whatever the sound, it told John one thing: they were being followed. It wasn't enough for the dragon to just make sure they left her cave, and her treasures, and whatever else she was protecting. She was chasing them away. Maybe she wouldn't stop until she had killed them.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, John wondered what Harry would think if he did not make it back alive.

John's mind was set only on getting home – if he could get home before the dragon caught up to them. He was prepared to follow the familiar route home, almost running as though he was on autopilot. However, as they approached the forest where John had found Sherlock, the elf grabbed his wrist and pulled them towards it.

"What—" John started, but Sherlock tugged at his wrist and forced John to stumble after him, into the forest.

All of John's instincts screamed to get out of there, because the forest was the only place more terrifying than the cave at this time of night, and because surely the dragon would see them running, surely she could just set fire to the entire forest, killing them along with anything else that got caught in the forest fire that would spread from tree to tree until it was too late to do anything. John opened his mouth, to speak, to protest and say that they should go somewhere else, but he managed to get out no more than the first syllable of Sherlock's name before Sherlock whirled around, the hand that was not on John's wrist covering his mouth to muffle the sound, and he yanked John over to a tree, pressing John's back against it where they would both be hidden from the line of sight of anything just outside the forest.

That was good, as long as the dragon had not seen them go in there.

John hoped the dragon had not seen them go in there.

Neither of them moved, for a moment. Sherlock's hand was still covering John's mouth, and his eyes were locked on John's, as though he was silently telling him to be quiet (not that John needed any extra incentive). Outside the forest, John heard footsteps, large footsteps, coming closer. He squeezed his eyes shut tight.

The footsteps came to a stop. The dragon was close enough for John to hear her huffing. John himself hardly dared to breathe.

She let out that half-roar, half-screech that John had heard her make earlier. He felt Sherlock's hand tighten on his wrist.

Then came the footsteps again, but this time, they were going in the opposite direction.

She was going back the way they came. Back to her cave.

They both stood perfectly still and silent for a good moment, until the sound of footsteps faded away, and then Sherlock released John's wrist and uncovered his mouth and John's legs gave way beneath him. He slid down the tree trunk into a crouch.

"Are you all right?" Sherlock asked, and John glanced up at him, and then let out a breathless laugh.

"That—" he gasped. "That was the most insane thing I've ever done in my life."

A grin broke over Sherlock's face. "Says the man who came to leave a dragon egg in the forest at sunset."

"Trust me, my life isn't usually this interesting." He looked around, and then looked back at Sherlock. "Speaking of forests, do you mind if we get out of here? This might be a decent home for you, but I'd rather not get torn to shreds."

"I'd hardly let that happen to you," Sherlock said, but he stretched out his arm, and John grabbed his wrist, taking Sherlock's help to get back to his feet.

John glanced towards the outskirts of the forest. "I won't ask you to walk me home," he said, "because I get the feeling that you hiding in here is why your species is still thought to be extinct." At Sherlock's nod of confirmation, John continued, "But if I come back tomorrow, when it's light and when this place isn't so creepy, will you still be around?"

"The forest is my home, John," Sherlock said. "You can always find me here."

John tipped his head to the side, and smiled. "I'll hold you to that."

* * *

Prompt #2: _"You're kidding, right? You do realize elves aren't real?"_


	17. Letters

**Author's Note:** Hoo boy. This one was a wild ride to write, and even more so to edit. It's quite a bit different to what I'm used to writing, in content and in structure, so I confess to being a little bit nervous in posting it. Hope you all enjoy it nonetheless!

A million thanks to my brilliant beta, Becca (Ao3's LlamaWithAPen).

See the end of the work for a couple of trigger warnings (nothing major, mentions only).

* * *

Prompt from user Aida Vice: _John is Sherlock's client._

 **Letters**

John raises his gaze from the map on his phone, looking at the door before him. '221B' it reads in gold letters. This is the place: this is the home of Sherlock Holmes. This is the home of the consulting detective who could supposedly read your life story in the lines of your face and the creases of your clothes, who could solve cases so remarkable they belonged in Agatha Christie novels instead of in the mundane daily paper. This is the man who Mike swears can help John.

This is John's only hope.

He pockets his phone and presses the doorbell.

 _Four Days Earlier_

Harry was late.

John did not even know why he had bothered turning up early. Harry was notoriously late for everything. She had never had the best time management skills, even when they were kids at school. However, John had thought that – or hoped that, perhaps – this would be different. This was going to be the first time that John saw Harry since he had come home from Afghanistan, despite the fact that John had been home for months. Harry had been the one to organise this catch-up, to choose the date and the location. She had told John that she was doing better, that she had been sober for almost a month now – certainly the longest period of time that she had gone without a drink since she was a teenager. John had thought that maybe it meant she was better, now. He had thought that maybe it meant she was more in control of her life, and it meant that she would get to her chosen cafe on time.

Apparently, John had thought wrong.

Five minutes was understandable. Ten minutes was frustrating, but forgivable. Harry, however, was over half an hour late. John had gone through most of the bottle of water that was sitting on the table. The waitress kept giving him pitying looks, as though he had been stood up on a date. If this were a date, John would have left already. If your date was half an hour late, it either meant that they weren't reliable, or they just weren't that into you.

Yet, this was not a date. This was Harry. This was John's little sister, with whom he would admit he had always had a strained relationship, but she was still family. He had half a mind to just leave the cafe and go home, but what kind of brother would that make him?

He stood up, apologised to the waitstaff for wasting their time, and left a tip although he had not ordered anything, before moving out into the street. He hailed a cab, and when one pulled up, he climbed in and gave them Harry's address.

 _Today_

John knows the doorbell worked, when he pressed it. He heard the faint echo of its sound from his place outside the door. However, the few minutes that pass after John presses the button makes him wonder if anyone is actually home to hear it. He had looked Sherlock Holmes up on the Internet, after Mike mentioned his name. He had found his website – _The Science of Deduction_. The website included a forum, where you could post messages if you needed the man's help, but John had been unwilling to wait the length of time that it could take for Holmes to see and respond to his message. He did not know if they had that long to wait. Turning up at the man's flat seemed like a better idea, a better way to get his attention immediately. Unfortunately, the website hadn't given any details on "office hours", or times when Holmes would be home to see any visitors, and so John can only hope that he has not come at a bad time.

John is about to press the doorbell again – he's impatient, yes, but he's got every right to be desperate – but fortunately, the door opens before he has the chance. The man standing before him is certainly Sherlock Holmes. John had found a couple of newspaper articles when he had looked him up. No paper had gotten a clear image of his face – there was one with a hat pulled over his head, another with his face turned away from the camera – but what John had been able to see in the papers matched the man before him. His dark curls are pushed back off his head by a pair of safety goggles. He is holding a burner in one hand.

John wonders if this is a bad time.

John immediately thinks that this is important, and if this is a bad time, Sherlock Holmes is just going to have to deal with it.

"Mr Holmes," he says, extending a hand in greeting. "I'm, uh, I'm John Watson, I'm—"

Holmes cuts him off before he has a chance to finish. "A client," he says, looking John up and down with an odd sort of scrutiny. On his website, Holmes had claimed that he could identify a software designer by his tie and an airline pilot from his left thumb. John had thought at the time that this was a little bit of a joke, an exaggerated comment. With the way Holmes is looking at him now, John finds he's not sure it was exaggerated at all. The way Holmes looks at him gives the impression he sees far more than what meets the eye to most people. John wonders exactly what it is he sees.

"If this is a bad time, I can make an appointment and come back," he says, hoping to come across as polite and consequently get into Holmes' good books, and also hoping that this is not a bad time. Fortunately, Holmes also seems to believe that making an appointment is unnecessary.

"No," he says, and he turns swiftly, making his way up the stairs. He does not close the door behind him, so John assumes that that is an invitation. He steps inside, closes the door, and then follows Holmes up.

 _Four Days Earlier_

John pounded on the door to Harry's apartment, ignoring the shouts of "Shut up!" or "Go away!" from her neighbours. John knew that Harry was inside. He had heard something fragile fall earlier and shatter, and that had been immediately followed by the unmistakeable sound of his sister swearing. Harry was definitely inside, and Harry could definitely hear him knocking. John was not going anywhere until she opened the door.

He knocked again, yelling Harry's name, and he ignored the neighbour that yelled "She doesn't want to see you!" Of course Harry did not want to see John. If she wanted to see John, she would have turned up at the cafe. It didn't mean that John was going to give up and go home.

He raised his fist to knock for the umpteenth time, but Harry opened the door before his hand could make contact with the wood. She was still dressed in pyjamas, hair tied in a messy bun, bathrobe hanging loosely over her shoulders. She hadn't even made the effort to get ready, hadn't even tried to meet John at the cafe. John might have forgiven her if her excuse was that she had overslept – it happened, he knew – but it was clear that Harry hadn't just stumbled out of bed at the sound of the knock. She held a glass of clear liquid in one hand. John was willing to bet it wasn't water.

"Harry..." John started, but Harry turned away before he could get out another word.

"Don't," she said, making her way back into the apartment. It did not escape John's notice how she failed to walk in a straight line to get there. She had not closed the door in John's face, however, so John stepped inside and closed it behind him.

 _Today_

The Baker Street flat is interestingly decorated, to say the least. It's a mess, for one thing – a small table by the window is covered with papers, and a second table in the kitchen seems to hold far more scientific equipment than it does food. It is on this second table that Holmes places his burner, and the safety goggles that were on top of his head. He ruffles his hair before he moves into the living room where John is standing.

There is a bison skull on the wall, wearing a pair of headphones. There is another skull – a human one – sitting on the mantel. Its empty eyes stare blankly at John. John does not stare back.

Aside from the chairs at the two tables, there are three seats in the room – two chairs and a sofa. One of the chairs looks significantly more worn than the other. Its cushions sink inwards under the weight of someone who has sat upon it multiple times. The other chair, in comparison, looks scarcely used. It's interesting, that having two chairs gives the impression of two people living there, but that only one is used makes it clear that Holmes lives alone. John wonders why the second chair is there.

Holmes gestures to the sofa, and John takes a seat. Once he does, Holmes sits as well, this time in the more worn of the two chairs. He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees and placing his fingers beneath his chin. He gives John that same, scrutinising look that he had when John had come to the front door.

"You're not here for yourself," he says after a brief pause. John blinks in surprise, and wonders what part of John's face, or body, or clothing, gives that little titbit of information away.

"No, I'm not," John confirms with a small shake of his head. "It's about my sister."

 _Four Days Earlier_

Harry's apartment was a mess. Dirty dishes were piled up in the sink, and they looked like they had been in there for more than a day. It was clear that they were not just breakfast dishes. Clothes were strewn over the floor, with no apparent organisation. There was an open bottle of vodka on the kitchen counter. John immediately headed for it.

"You said you'd stopped," he said, picking up the bottle and pouring its contents down the drain.

"I'll stop when—hey, stop!" Harry stumbled to her feet, but she was too unsteady to make her way over to the kitchen before John had emptied the entire bottle. "That was mine."

"You were doing well, Harry," he said, putting the now empty bottle back on the counter and turning back to his sister. "You told me it had been weeks."

"It had," Harry said, reaching the kitchen counter and leaning her elbows on it for support. She held her glass of vodka in her hands, and looked down at it with a pitifully sad expression on her face, now aware that this was her last glass until she could go out and buy some more. "Changed my mind. Sobri- Sobree- Being sober doesn't suit me."

"Harry..." John started, but he didn't know what to say. Harry had been a drinker since before she was even legally allowed to do so. John had watched her fight for sobriety and then fall apart again when the next bad thing happened in her life. John had tried, time and time again, to stop her from drinking, but to no avail. What could he possibly say now that might help her get through her relapse? What could he possibly say that might make her think that being sober was better than not having to think?

He looked around her kitchen, taking in the scattered mess of objects over her counter and the floor. His eyes finally settled on a pile of envelopes on the corner of the counter. Harry did not often receive letters – neither of them did, given that most contact nowadays was done through the wonders of the internet – so the number of envelopes sitting there must have accumulated for at least a week. John took a step over and started sorting through them.

Some of them were bills – he recognised them from the logo in the corner. They weren't even open. He put them in one pile. "They'll shut off your electricity if you don't pay them, you know," he said. When he didn't hear Harry respond, he looked up, and found that she had moved from the place beside the counter to her dining room table. Perhaps she had decided that standing used too much energy. Her glass was empty now, and she was rolling the base around on the table, staring at it as though with the hope that she could refill it with nothing more than sheer willpower. She showed no sign of having heard John's comment, and John figured that he wouldn't have much luck if he repeated it, either.

He went back to sorting through Harry's mail, putting the bills aside and then making a separate pile for any junk mail that could be thrown out. Perhaps if he made it easier for Harry to get back on her feet and get back to the real world, she would be more likely to try. Getting rid of the junk mail made the pile of letters look less menacing.

As he sorted through them, one particular letter caught his eye. It had been opened – messily – and the letter had been shoved back into the envelope, apparently after it had been read. It was creased and crumpled and half hanging out of the envelope. There was no return address.

"What's this?" John asked, glancing up at Harry. She did not respond or even so much as glance up from her empty glass. John was not sure that she had heard him at all.

Rather than repeating the question, John - after a moment of hesitation – carefully pulled the crumpled letter from the envelope and unfolded it.

The letter was written in a messy scrawl that took John a moment to decipher. When he did, he felt something cold clench around his heart.

 _Today_

John reaches into his pocket and pulls the crumpled letter that he had found in Harry's kitchen. Harry doesn't know that she has it. It's not the sort of letter that she would notice had gone missing. Judging by the way she had crumbled it, she was probably going to throw it out anyway. John is glad to have taken it, because it means that Harry won't read the letter again. She shouldn't have had to read the letter once.

Even though the letter had not been directed to John himself, he couldn't help but feel sick to the stomach upon reading it. Even handing it over to Holmes, knowing what is contained inside, makes him feel sick. The letter is filled with insults and slurs that John would never repeat out loud, not even to his worst enemy. They're words that John knows Harry has heard her whole life, since she came out as a teenager. He had thought they had stopped when she left high school. Surely adults are intelligent enough to know better.

The insults aren't even the worst part of the letter, however. The worst part is the two sentences at the end. They read:

 _you deserve to die. you deserve everything thats coming to you_

He watches in silence as Holmes reads over the letter. Holmes has a blank expression on his face – he has since John arrived – but as he reads the letter, his eyebrows raise, and John is sure that he sees his upper lip twitch into a microexpression of disgust.

"That's the most recent one," John says, when he is sure that the detective has read enough of the letter to get the point. "Or, at least, it was the most recent as of four days ago. I don't know if she's received any more like that over the past couple of days."

"The most recent, but not the first," Holmes says – a statement, not a question.

John nods his head.

 _Four Days Earlier_

"Harry," John said, slowly raising his gaze from the slurs and the threats on the page to look at his sister. She was still looking sadly at the empty glass, as though she was secretly hoping it might magically refill itself. When she did not respond, John approached the table, holding the letter in his hand. "Harry," he repeated.

When the word finally reached Harry's ears and she looked up at him, John gestured to the letter in his hand. "What's this?"

For a moment, Harry's gaze flickered between John's face and the letter, and John could see the exact second she realised what John was holding. Her eyes widened, and some of the colour drained out of her face. She reached for the letter, and she probably would have snatched it out of John's hands if she wasn't so drunk. However, with her reflexes slowed, it was easy for John to hold it out of her reach.

"What is it, Harry?" he asked.

"It's nothing," Harry said, shaking her head. "Rubbish. Junk. Why're you snooping through my letters?"

"I wasn't snooping. I was sorting them out for you - and, by the way, you have a few bills that really need to be paid soon." He gestured to the letter in his hand again. "Who sent this?"

"I don't know," Harry replied with a shrug. "Some homophobic jerk. It doesn't matter. I'm not replying to any of them, so eventually they'll give up."

"Any of them?" John repeated. "You've received more than just this letter?" When Harry ducked her gaze, John continued, "Harry, how many of these letters are there?"

Harry frowned in thought, looking towards the ceiling in the way they used to as kids when she was thinking really hard. "Um, maybe ten? Or twenty. Probably closer to ten, I don't think there were twenty. Something like that."

"Have you told anyone?"

"Why bother? They're just stupid letters. They're nothing, really. I've heard worse."

"They're not nothing, Harry, these are death threats."

Harry leaned her head on her hand, rubbing her temples as though to will away a headache. John moved back into the kitchen to grab Harry a clean glass of water, putting the letter in his pocket as he did. When he returned to the table, he placed a fresh glass of water in front of her and then slid down into the adjacent chair. "How long has this been going on?" he asked.

Harry shrugged her shoulders. "A few weeks. Maybe a month or so." She paused for a beat, and then added, "They weren't all threats. Some were just insults and stuff. One basically told me I need a big strong man to shag the gay out of me." A wry smile grew over her face, as though that particular letter was supposed to be funny, but John failed to see any humour in the situation.

"You need to tell someone," he said. "Maybe even the police."

Harry shook her head. "Why bother? I don't care."

"You're drunk, Harry. You got drunk after reading that letter. You and I both know you care."

 _Today_

"Harry's always been really confident in her sexuality," John says, as Holmes reads over the letter again. "She came out when she was maybe fourteen, and after that it was never really a secret. She had girlfriends every other week, and she was open to anyone she talked to. It was impossible to not know she was gay. And, yeah, of course she got shit for it, because teenagers are idiots, but it never got to her."

"When did she start drinking?" Holmes asks. John blinks – he doesn't remember getting to that part in his story yet – and Holmes says, "Her letter smells faintly of alcohol. More likely to be from her than from the writer. It's obviously not from you. When did she start drinking?"

John thinks for a moment, and then says, "I think she was about sixteen."

Holmes raises his eyebrows. "And you don't think the harassment got to her back then?"

John shakes his head. "I can see why you'd think that, but you don't know Harry. Other things would get to her. Break-ups or unrequited love – they were the kind of things that would make her turn to the bottle. Her girlfriends, or ex-girlfriends, were the sort of people who could do that to her. So could..." He trails off for a moment, hesitates, and then says, "our father", before pushing on quickly, "but bullies didn't get to her. At least, if they did, they weren't the only thing that bothered her, or the only thing that made her drink. When it came to bullies, she almost seemed to find it funny. She's witty when she wants to be. Quick to come up with comebacks and stuff. She'd say that they were just jealous, and then that would be it."

Holmes reads over the letter again. "And yet you say that the letters – or at least this letter – bothered her to the point of making her choose to drink?"

John glances at the letter in Holmes' hand. "Yes," he says, thinking of what that might mean. Why would Harry, who had never cared for morons who insulted her sexuality, be so distressed by these letters – bothered enough to drink but not concerned enough to call the police? Did it mean that Harry was more sensitive now that she was older? Or did it mean...

As though reading his mind, Holmes says, "I believe she knows who is sending these."

 _Four Days Earlier_

The amount of alcohol that Harry had consumed in a short period of time caught up to her a few moments later. John sat in the living room while she emptied the contents of her stomach into the toilet. He pulled the letter from his pocket, reading over it again.

It didn't make sense to him. He couldn't understand why someone would write and send a letter like this – multiple times. These were words that Harry had heard her whole life, but it felt different coming from what was probably an adult. Teenagers were idiots, and while that did not excuse their behaviour, it did make it somewhat less surprising. Adults, however, should have known better. The idea that a fully-grown adult sat down and wrote out those letters and made a conscious decision to send them was sickening.

Adults were also more likely to go through with their threats. It made the letters infinitely more terrifying.

The toilet flushed, and John glanced up as Harry, now much paler than before, returned. She wrapped an arm around her stomach and swayed a little on her feet, leaning into the doorframe for support to steady herself. John pocketed the letter once again and stood.

"Come on, let's get you to bed," he said, in the tone of voice that he used with young children, nervous patients, or just a very drunk Harry. "You can sleep it off. I'll come over tomorrow morning, and we can talk about this when you're sober."

"Don't wanna talk about it," Harry mumbled, though she did not protest when John wrapped an arm around her waist, guiding her gently towards her bedroom.

"I know you don't," he said. He pushed open the door to her bedroom and guided her over to her bed. She immediately collapsed down onto it, and John dragged the blankets up over her. "Just rest now. I'll be over first thing tomorrow morning. Promise me you'll be sober when I get here."

Harry made a mumbled sound that did not quite sound like a promise. John stood there in silence until Harry looked at him, and then he looked her straight in the eye and gave her his most stern big-brother voice.

"Promise, Harry," he said.

Harry sighed, but finally, she said, "I promise."

"Good," John replied. "Now go get some rest. I'll see you in the morning."

 _Today_

"Do you have the other letters?" Holmes asks.

John shakes his head. "No, sorry. I had a look before I left but I couldn't see anything anywhere. I think she might have been throwing them out."

"Did she tell you anything else about them?"

"Very little. She mentioned that not all of them had been threats, though they seemed to be centred around her sexuality." He paused for a moment, thinking, and then added, "I think the person writing them is a guy. She said that they implied she needed to have sex with a man so she wouldn't be gay anymore." He couldn't stop his upper lip from twitching into a sneer at the mere thought of the message.

Holmes seemed more able to disconnect and treat it a lot more scientifically. He nodded his head. "It does seem more like something a male would write," he said, and then he clasped his hands together. "I need to talk to your sister, to gather more data."

John purses his lips, and he drops his gaze to the floor. "You can't," he says slowly, and Holmes cocks an eyebrow.

"And why is that?"

 _Three Days Earlier_

True to her promise, Harry was sober by the time John reached her apartment the next day. That may have been in part because John chose to visit her apartment so early the next morning that Harry did not really have the opportunity to drink before he turned up. She was still in her pyjamas when she opened the door, and the sleepy look in her eyes said that she had not been awake for long. There was no smell of alcohol on her breath, and she was steady on her feet.

"How are you feeling?" John asked, stepping through the door and closing it behind him.

"Sober," Harry replied, spitting the word as though it was something distasteful. She turned and moved into her living room, and when she sat down on the sofa, John took a seat beside her.

"You said you had been clean for a few weeks," he reminded her.

"Yes, and then yesterday I drank half a bottle of vodka."

"It doesn't mean you failed. You can get back there again. Little steps at a time, remember?"

Harry wrinkled her nose. "I like it better when you're fighting with me. I know what to say then. The whole caring older brother thing doesn't really suit you."

"I am a caring older brother," John insisted. "My fighting with you is just my way of showing you that I care."

"No, your fighting with me is just your way of showing me how much I piss you off."

John's lips quirked upwards into a faint smile. "Well, that true," he said. After a moment, he asked, in a more serious tone, "Was it the letter that made you drink yesterday?"

Harry averted her gaze. John took that as a 'yes'.

"We'll tell someone," he said. "I'll call the police. We can tell them everything, show them the letters, and they can—"

"No," Harry said firmly, cutting him off. "No, we're not telling the police."

"Harry," John said firmly. "They can help you. They can make sure that this guy – whoever he is – can't hurt you."

Harry shook her head. "No. I don't care, I'm not going to the police. I don't want them involved."

"We're talking about _death threats_. You can't just ignore this."

"Of course I can!"

"What if whoever wrote those letters decides to act on them? You could get hurt."

Harry shook her head. "It's just some stupid jerk. It's nothing to worry about."

"Harry—"

"I said no, end of story. You can't make me talk to them."

"Why are you so against it?"

Harry shifted in her seat, and fixed her gaze somewhere off over John's shoulder, out her window. "This is my life, John. I don't want the police to follow me everywhere. I don't want them parked outside my house. You might be happy with that kind of invasion of privacy, but I'm not. This guy – the guy writing these letters – doesn't get to make my life any worse than it already is."

"And you don't think that the possibility of him actually hurting you won't make your life worse?"

Harry turned her head away. "I'm not talking about this anymore," she said.

 _Today_

"She refuses to talk to the police," John explains. "I don't know why. She claims it's because she doesn't want police escorts, but even when she told me I didn't believe her. I suppose if she knows who is sending them, that makes a bit more sense. Either way, she won't talk to the police, and I can't get them involved without her cooperation."

"So you came to me," Holmes says.

"So I came to you," John replies. "From what I've been told, if anyone can help, you can. You might be the only person who can work out who is sending these letters without letting my sister know that you're even investigating it."

Holmes leans back on his chair. "I'm used to mystery on only one end of my cases," he says. "Normally, I wouldn't accept a case where the client in question remains out of reach." He pauses for a moment, for long enough for John to worry that this was just a waste of time and that there is nothing he can do to help his sister, and then he continues, "Fortunately, I'm in need of a challenge." He clasps his hands together and gets to his feet. "When is your sister next going to leave the house?"

John blinks in surprise at the question, and then glances at his watch. "She should be out for the next hour or so, if she takes my advice," he says. "I asked her to go to an AA meeting today that starts in about fifteen minutes."

"Perfect," says Holmes. "Text her, confirm she'll be out of the building."

John is already pulling out his phone to do just that. "What are we going to do?" he asks.

"We," Holmes replies, "are going to go find out what other data her home has to offer."

 _Two Days Earlier_

John sat at the table in the coffee shop, twisting the letter in his hands. He had not meant to bring it with him – he had found it in his pocket when he had gone to reach for his wallet. He had forgotten it was in there when he put these trousers on this morning. He should have put it straight back away, but once he had it in his hands, he couldn't stop himself from reading over it again.

He was waiting on one of his friends from his days at university – Mike Stamford – to meet him at the coffee shop. He had bumped into him a few days earlier when he was out for a walk; they had both been a bit stuck for time, so they had agreed to meet for coffee to catch up. John had felt a lot more excited for that catch up when he hadn't had thoughts about Harry lingering in the back of his mind. Now, he couldn't help but feel that he wouldn't be very good company.

He read through the letter again – not that he needed to, because the words were already firmly engrained in his mind. Two days later, and it was just as sickening as it had been the first time he saw it. It still made no sense to him, why someone would do this. He could only fear what else they were capable of.

"Sorry I'm late," said a familiar voice, and John looked up to see Mike slide into the seat across from him. He hurriedly folded the letter in his hand, as though it was something shameful, something that needed to be hidden. Unfortunately, he did not manage to hide it quickly enough, because Mike nodded towards it. "What's that?"

"Nothing," John answered, in a tone of voice that must have made it clear that it was far more than nothing. Mike picked up on the tone, but did not realise the meaning behind it, because a small smile grew over his face.

"Something embarrassing?" he teased, and John wished he could crack a smile, make it a joke and then move straight past it. Yet, he couldn't do it. It felt wrong to make light of the situation in any way. His gaze dropped to the table, and the smile immediately fell from Mike's face.

"What is it?" Mike asked, in a much more serious, concerned tone, and even though John and Mike had been out of touch for years, John couldn't help but remember nights spent studying with Mike and talking about things going on at home, things with his father, or with Harry. Something about late nights was like a truth serum. Mike had always been a good listener, then.

"It's Harry," John said after a long pause .He hesitated, and continued, "She's been getting letters."

Mike didn't speak, but the look that he gave him prompted him to go on – not pushing, but willing John to continue all the same. John considered leaving it at that – talking about this was only going to ruin the mood of what could have otherwise been a very nice meeting – but he had already brought it up, and it was probably too late to avoid killing the mood. So, John fiddled with the letter, and continued, "Abusive letters. Stuff about her sexuality. She's been getting death threats."

Mike's eyes widened. "Do you know who from?"

John shook his head. "No idea. I want her to talk to the police about it, but she's refusing. You know what she's like. The police can't do anything if she doesn't want them to." He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I don't know what to do, Mike."

Mike frowned, looking thoughtful for a minute. "I might have an idea," he said after a pause.

John looked up immediately. "What?"

"I know this guy, Sherlock Holmes. He's kind of like a private investigator, but not quite. He might be able to help you. He might even be able to help without letting Harry know what's going on."

"Do you think that would work?" John asked. Mike smiled a little.

"Trust me, Sherlock seems to be the best that there is. I've seen him work. He's a bit of a madman, but he's also a genius. Here, let me give you his address."

 _Today_

When John approached Sherlock Holmes earlier this morning, he did not expect to be breaking into his sister's flat by early afternoon.

To be fair, the term "breaking in" can only be loosely applied (or, at least, that is what John keeps telling himself). He knows his sister well enough to know that she has a tendency to misplace her phone, or her purse, or her keys, especially after a night at the pub. He knows that she's had to call a locksmith more times than she would have liked just to get back into her apartment. So, John knows that she keeps a spare key under her doormat. John has told her multiple times that keeping a key under the doormat is incredibly obvious. Harry has told him in response that if she did not put the key in an obvious location, her drunken mind would never remember where it was.

Holmes had implied that he would have been content to do this on his own, but John had insisted on coming with him. Even though Mike seemed to trust the man, John is not willing to let a perfect stranger break into his sister's apartment on his own. John would much rather stay close, just to make sure that Holmes really is who he says he is, and not a thief who poses as a 'consulting detective' to gain access into unsuspecting people's homes. In addition, John does not want to be left out of the loop. Anything Holmes knows, or works out, John wants to hear about immediately. If there is anything, anything he can do to keep his sister safe, he needs to know right away.

John stands by the wall so he's out of Holmes' way, and he watches the man work. Holmes' eyes are bright as they move around the room, taking in everything there is to see. What John sees when he looks around is a messy room of someone who has had no reason to clean up for guests in a long while. John wonders if Holmes can see more. With gloved hands, the consulting detective opens drawers and cupboards, picks up glasses and cups, inspects frames of photos. John doesn't know what Holmes expects to obtain from Harry's home – surely any useful evidence would be in the home of the mystery person who is writing the letters, and not in the home of the recipient. But, John is no consulting detective. He can only hope that Holmes knows what he's doing.

 _Two Days Earlier_

When John returned home from coffee with Mike, he immediately opened up his laptop and typed in the name _Sherlock Holmes_.

A few results popped up in response to his search. He chose the first link first, which redirected him to a webpage titled "The Science of Deduction". This, it seemed, was the detective's website. John did not spend long scrolling through the site, but he spent long enough to see some of the more recent forum and blog posts. The most recent blog post was an analysis of 243 different types of tobacco ash. John did not know what purpose such an analysis served.

John exited the webpage and looked through some of the other search results. A couple of the links led him to newspaper articles of investigations – missing persons, murders. Apparently, Holmes had been involved in investigating some of those cases. Interestingly, however, John noted that his name was never the main investigator – the articles listed Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade as the chief investigator on the case. Holmes, judging by the articles alone, never played a particularly big role in any of the investigations. The way Mike had spoken about him earlier made John wonder how big a role Holmes had played behind the scenes.

There was the odd photo or two, as well, in some of the articles, but none gave a clear view of Holmes' face. Some looked candid, like the photographer had captured a picture of the side of Holmes' face while he was off paying attention to something else, while others looked like Holmes had intentionally turned his head away or covered his face by his hand. Could he be camera shy, John wondered, or was there some other motive Holmes had for keeping his face out of the papers?

The web search ultimately led John to more questions, more uncertainty, but he trusted Mike's opinion, and if Mike thought that this man could help, John would take his word. John returned to the man's website in search of contact details, and found an address: 221B Baker Street.

 _Today_

Eventually, Holmes finishes with Harry's living room – either because he's found everything he needs or because he hasn't found anything at all – and he begins to move through her apartment. He does not give John any warning, or tell John where he is going or what he is doing, but John is not going to let the man out of his sight. The moment he steps through a door, John is right behind him.

"Are you concerned I'll steal something?" Holmes asks as he moves into Harry's bedroom, looking over his shoulder and raising an eyebrow at John.

"Not really," John replies. "I'm going to assume the newspapers are right in thinking that you're a consulting detective and not a fraud who pretends to be a detective to get into people's houses to steal from them."

Something like amusement flickers over Holmes' face, and he turned to look around the room. "Newspapers are rarely accurate," he says.

He walks over to the bedside table and begins to look through the drawers. Now that they are in Harry's bedroom – an undeniably more private place than her living room – John can't help but feel that this is a huge invasion of privacy. He is invading his sister's privacy, and he's letting this detective – a perfect stranger – invade his sister's privacy. He knows that his sister would be furious if she found out that he allowed someone to go through her drawers when she was out, especially after her refusal to go to the police. He reminds himself that this is for her own good, that this is all so that they can keep Harry safe.

In the bottom drawer, Holmes finds an envelope, and he turns it over in his hands. At first, John thinks he has found another letter – had Harry kept them, hidden away? However, when he takes a step closer, he sees that what Holmes pulls out of the envelope is not a letter, but instead a pile of shiny photographs. He lifts the top one up, studying it for a moment before holding it so that John can see. In the photograph, there are two women. The arm of the woman on the left extends outside of the frame – she was the one holding the camera, taking the photo of the two of them. The woman on the right is kissing the other woman's cheek.

"The one on your left is your sister, correct?" Holmes says. "There's clear family resemblance. Do you recognise the other woman?"

John takes a step closer to get a better look, but it makes no difference. The woman is completely unfamiliar to him. He can't get a particularly good look at her face – side on, her dark hair falls over her cheek and hides her profile – but what he can see is unfamiliar. It's not any of Harry's previous partners. He glances at the date at the bottom of the photograph, which puts it at several months ago. It was after Harry had split up with Clara, her now ex-wife. John had not known that Harry had had another girlfriend since then.

Holmes begins to flick through the photographs – there are at least a dozen in the envelope, all containing the same woman. She and Harry were undoubtedly together – the kiss on the cheek in the first photograph could have been platonic, but the other photos remove that possibility from John's mind. There are pictures of kisses and of holding hands, a few photos of the mysterious woman alone gazing at the person behind the camera, red lips pulled into a sincere-looking smile.

The final photo in the set is of the dark-haired woman alone, curled up in what John recognises to be Harry's bed. Her dark hair is splayed out over the pillow. She looks as though she's just woken up, a lazy sort of smile on her face, but there's a twinkle in her eye as she looks at the person behind the camera. The expression on her face is clearly flirtatious, and though the photograph itself is not explicit, John feels almost perverse looking at the expression that was clearly not meant for him.

"These pictures are taken over a matter of months," Holmes says, and John drags his gaze away from the picture to look at Holmes instead. "You really never became acquainted with this woman in that time?"

John shakes his head. "No, never. Which is weird, because Harry usually tells me about her relationships – if not directly, then she'll post pictures on social media."

That's not even the strangest part about this situation, John thinks. The strangest part is that Harry has this stash of pictures in her bottom drawer. John's sister has gone through numerous relationships in her life, ranging from lasting a couple of weeks to months or years. When they end, Harry throws away everything that reminds her of that person. Usually, she's the one to end the relationship – the fights get too much, or she gets sick of sharing her life with someone, or she falls out of love – and when that happens, Harry clears her ex-partners out of her life for good. On the few occasions when the partner has been the one to end the relationship, she does the same thing as a way of coping with the heartbreak. Photos get burnt, gifts get thrown away – she even gave John the phone that her ex-wife had given to her, even though it was expensive and in near-perfect condition. Harry has never been a sentimental person, especially not when she falls out of love. When she moves on, she does it completely.

There are no pictures of Clara anywhere in the flat, despite Clara being the strongest relationship that Harry was ever in. There used to be photos in frames, ornaments on shelves that Clara had bought. Now, the shelves are empty, the photo frames bare. You would never know that Clara had been a part of her life. And yet, here is a collection of photographs of a woman that John does not know, hidden away in the bottom drawer as though they're a guilty little secret.

John does not explain this out loud, but Holmes seems to realise how unusual the situation is all the same. He begins to flick through the photographs again, this time lingering on each of them a little bit longer, eyes moving around the scene that each photo displayed in an attempt to take in anything and everything that could prove useful. Once or twice, he takes out his phone and takes a picture of a photograph, undoubtedly so he can study it later. John feels uncomfortable, knowing that such a private set of pictures is now stored on the phone of a stranger, even if it is for a good cause. When this is all over, he'll make sure Holmes deletes the photos, just to be safe.

"Do you think these have anything to do with the letters?" John asks, glancing over his shoulder as though he fears Harry might come home any moment and find them snooping. He reminds himself that, if she stays for the entire AA meeting, she won't be back for at least another half hour.

"A set of letters that your sister does not want to talk about, and a set of photographs that she's been keeping hidden?" Holmes says. "Seems a bit too much to be a coincidence, doesn't it?"

"Well, yes," John says. "But I thought the letters were coming from a man."

"From what you've told me, that does seem likely," Holmes says. "That these photos are in some way connected to the letters does not imply that the woman featured in these photos is the one writing the letters. Had the letters been coming from a heartbroken ex-partner, the content would have been quite different. However, the letters could have been coming from someone associated with the woman, such as..." He trails off, staring at one picture in particular – the last picture in the pile, of the dark-haired woman in Harry's bed – and his eyes widen. "Oh. _Oh_."

"What?" John asks. "What is it?"

The man does not respond, apparently too caught up in his own head. There is a flurry of movement as he shoves the photos back into the envelope, almost carelessly, and returns it to the drawer. He pockets his phone, and then he turns swiftly, coat flying out around him, and he's taking long, quick strides to the door.

"What happened?" John says again, louder and more forcefully.

Over his shoulder, the man shouts, "The ring!"

And then he's out the door and out of sight.

John hesitates, for a moment torn between following Holmes and staying behind to see what he had seen in the pictures, and curiosity wins out. He also realises he wants to make sure the photos are put away properly, to hide any evidence that they had been handled. He moves quickly – maybe he can look at the pictures and then hurry off after Holmes before he gets too far away – pulling the envelope from the drawer and pulling out the last photograph that Holmes had viewed.

The woman's left hand lies on the pillow beside her head. There's no ring visible on it. John doesn't know what Holmes had been talking about, and his eyes begin to move around the photo in search of a ring somewhere other than on the woman's hand. He shifts the photograph in his hand, and the light catches the shiny paper. Then, he sees it.

It's not a physical ring, but a line around the woman's fourth finger that is paler than the rest of her hand. John would not have seen it if he had not been looking. The woman is not wearing a ring in the photograph, but the tan on her hands says that she's been wearing one recently, one that has been worn for long enough for a tan line to appear on her skin.

 _Six Months Earlier_

Violet's hair splayed out over Harry's pillow, dark locks framing the woman's face. It had been a few months now, but whenever they were together, Harry still could not tear her eyes away. Sometimes, she thought, Violet didn't even look human. She looked like some goddess sent down from the heavens, where the ugliness of the world could never reach. Harry reached over and tucked a lock of hair behind the woman's ear, and she smiled as Violet stirred, leaning into the touch.

She was beautiful like this, the lines of her face smoothed out in sleep, looking so calm, so content. Harry wanted to wake up to a sight like this every morning. It was definitely a sight she wanted to catch on camera and hold forever. She wanted to be able to look back on this moment whenever she pleased, to remember those brilliant few months where she had had this beautiful woman in her life, to feel the brush of her skin when they lay tangled in the sheets.

She leaned across to her bedside table and picked up the film camera that she had left there. She was almost out of film now, but she did not mind. She would have a roll of film filled with memories of this woman, of this relationship. She refused to use a digital camera, or her phone. She did not want these pictures to ever end up online – she did not want them on a device that could risk that. These were for her eyes only.

She turned back to Violet, who was beginning to come around. Her dark eyes fluttered open, and that smile – the smile that made Harry feel like a teenager again – grew over her face. Harry snapped a photo before the expression faded.

"You're going to waste all your film if you keep taking photos of me like that," Violet murmured.

"If I keep taking photos of you like that," Harry replied, "that film isn't going to waste at all."

Violet hummed, smiling, and Harry put the camera back down on the bedside table before she rolled onto her side. She let her eyes trace the soft lines of Violet's face. Here, in Harry's bed, she looked so calm and content, like it was exactly where she was supposed to be.

Nothing in Harry's life had ever gone this well. How did she get this lucky? What did she do to deserve this?

She tucked a loose strand of Violet's hair behind her ear, and dragged her fingertips down to cup her jaw, guiding her in for a kiss. Violet met her halfway, and Harry sighed into her mouth. She had never fit this well with anyone before. They slotted together like pieces of a puzzle, hands drawn to one another's skin like magnets. Violet made her feel like she was sixteen again, the way she felt the first time someone kissed her. Even the simple, chaste kisses and the innocent brushes of hands made her giddy. If Harry wrote poetry, she would write of symphonies, of fireworks that flashed behind her eyelids every time Violet kissed her just so. But Harry was no poet, and instead, she traced messages of love into the curve of Violet's waist and wrote promises into the smooth skin of her back.

She pressed closer, drawn in by the warmth of Violet's body, but Violet broke the kiss and turned her head away. "I should go," she said, but there was no real intent behind her words.

"Stay," Harry whispered, hands tightening around Violet's back, and she pressed her lips to Violet's cheek until Violet gave in and kissed her again. For a moment, Harry felt like nothing else in the world mattered. It was just the two of them, two halves of the same whole, tangled together in each other's arms as though they were exactly where they belonged.

But then Violet pulled away, pushing at Harry's shoulder – reluctant, but firm. "You know I can't," she murmured, and the perfect illusion shattered.

Harry had her on some nights or for a couple of hours over lunch. Sometimes, she was even lucky enough to have her for a weekend. But when the sun filtered through the blinds and shed light on a new day, Violet would always go back to him.

Violet rolled out of bed, taking the sheet with her, and set about searching for the clothes that had been discarded the night before. Harry pulled the quilt up, now feeling cold without the heat of another body beside her.

"Sure you can't stay even a little longer?" she said, trying not to sound too petulant.

Violet shook her head, like Harry knew she would. "I need to get back before he does," she said, and Harry watched her button up her shirt, tucking it into her skirt to hide the creases. Then, she pulled the ring from her pocket and slid it back on her finger, and once again, she was the Perfect Wife, ready to go home and have breakfast on the table by the time her husband walked through the door. Harry thought of her kissing his cheek, asking about his trip, telling him of how bored she was in the house, all alone, while he was away. Sometimes, Harry thought about his face, if she were to go over there and tell him exactly what Violet had been up to while he was out of town.

But she wouldn't. Violet wouldn't end her marriage, even though she was unhappy, and if Harry was to speak up, she might lose Violet forever. So, she would deal with the secrets and the lies, with sneaky meetings in her apartment and never out where they could be seen. She would deal with treasured photos of moments few and far between, of lingering kisses as they parted, promises that it would not be the last. Even if she only had her for a few hours, or maybe a night, it was so much better than never having her at all.

 _Today_

Holmes isn't answering his phone. John has tried half a dozen times. He's left voicemail messages and sent texts, but to no avail. This is the last thing he wanted, to be left in the dark. He doesn't know what lead Holmes has found, or what he's following. He doesn't even know where Holmes is. The only guess he has is the Baker Street flat, which is where John is headed at the moment. If Holmes is following some sort of lead, he might not be at the flat at all, but it's the only thing John can try. His knee bounces as he watches the streets flash past the window of the cab.

When the car comes to a stop, John passes the driver the money, but asks him to wait outside until he sees John enter the flat, so that, if no one is home, John doesn't need to hail a cab again. It turns out that the request is unnecessary. He knocks on the door and Holmes' voice calls "It's open" from somewhere up the stairs. John's chest swells with relief.

John pushes the door open and makes his way up the stairs. Once upon a time, he would have struggled to get up staircases like these. His leg would ache, and he would have to take one step at a time, leaning heavily on a cane. Now, he's doing a lot better. His leg still hurts sometimes, but it's not so bad now – especially now, while his mind is so focussed on the pile of photographs hidden in his sister's bedside drawer, and the way the detective had rushed off suddenly, as though the last piece of the puzzle had fallen into place in his head.

He reaches the top of the stairs, and finds Holmes standing by the small table in the corner of the room. His laptop is open in front of him. He is leaning over the back of the chair to read whatever is on the screen, rather than sitting down at the table.

"Please don't do that," John says from the doorway. Holmes glances up at him only briefly before his attention is back on the laptop screen again.

"Do what?" he asks, in a distant-sounding tone of voice.

"Run off without telling me what's happened or where you're going," John replies. "This is my sister's life we're talking about. I need to know what's going on."

"This is my job. This is what I do. I can't wait around for your tiny little brain to catch up." An insulted look must come across John's face, because Holmes immediately makes a dismissive gesture and adds, "Oh, don't be like that. Everyone's brains work slower than mine."

"Right," John says, and then continues, "Okay, then give me a hand and catch me up to speed. What happened? What did you work out?"

In response, Holmes turns the laptop around. John can see the screen, and the webpage that he has open. It's an online profile. John recognises the dark-haired woman in the picture.

"Her name is Violet Jones," Holmes explains. "She's been married to her partner, Simon, for six years now. Unhappy, which is obvious both from the content of her profile and from the fact that she was having an affair with your sister."

"But she wasn't the one sending those letters," John says.

"No, she wasn't," Holmes confirms. "I believe her husband found out about the affair. They're still together, according to the profile, so perhaps he forgave her for it. The letters would suggest he hasn't forgiven Harry. Perhaps he puts all the blame on her, believes that she seduced his otherwise perfect wife, confused her into believing she likes women. He's angry, and he's taking it out on Harry."

"Do you think there's any truth behind his threats?" John asks. "Would he actually hurt her?"

"Hard to say," Holmes replies, "but it would not be the first time that an affair has been a motive for murder."

A sick feeling churns in John's stomach.

Holmes scrolls through the webpage for a moment in silence, before he glances up at John. "Simon Jones should be at work for the next few hours," he says. "Why don't we go pay Mrs Jones a visit?"

 _One Month Earlier_

Harry glanced at the sign about the coffee shop, making sure this was the right one. She had never been to this coffee shop before, but maybe that was better. Maybe Violet had chosen this coffee shop in particular because neither of them were regulars, and it was unlikely that they would be recognised.

They never did this – meeting in public. There was always the risk that he might see them, or that one of his friends, or their friends, might see them. Rumours spread like wildfire; there was every possibility that anything they did could get back to him. It was better to keep this a secret, to meet in Harry's apartment, or occasionally even Violet's home on the nights when he was away from home. Why Violet had sent this text, asking Harry to meet her here, didn't make sense, and a part of her had been reluctant to agree. Was this the right thing to do? That said, if they kept it casual – quiet conversations, hands kept to themselves – maybe no one would suspect a thing. Maybe even Violet's husband could see them, and think that they were just friends.

Violet had said that she had needed to see Harry. Harry wasn't going to say no to a text like that.

She pushed open the door to the coffee shop, and breathed in the pleasant smell of coffee as she stepped inside. Her eyes scanned the room, the small number of people there. It was not very busy. Maybe Violet had chosen a quieter place for that reason. There was no sign of Violet anywhere. Harry pulled out her phone to check the time – she was only a minute or so early, and Violet was usually more punctual than she was. Maybe Violet had just gotten used to Harry's tardiness. She chose an empty table in the corner and sat down, pulling out her phone to fiddle with while she waited.

After several minutes, movement caught her eye as someone slid into the seat across from her. She looked up, ready to greet Violet, before realising that the person sitting there wasn't Violet at all. They weren't even the same gender as Violet.

"Um, this seat's taken, sorry," she said.

"Yes," the man said calmly. "By me."

Harry blinked. She had heard some strange pick-up lines from guys in the past – some where she had wondered if maybe they only worked when the recipient actually liked men, and some where she was sure would never work on anyone, ever. This, she thought, was a new one. She leaned back in her chair.

"Listen," she said. "No offence, but you're not really my type, and I'm meeting with someone, so you should probably go find some other woman to chat up. Trust me, you'll have a lot more success with someone who likes men."

The man leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, body language saying 'I'm not going anywhere'. Harry wanted to groan. In movies, determination was supposed to be a good thing. The male protagonist kept pushing, pushing, pushing until he got the girl, and it was "so romantic". Surely straight women did not actually like that in real life. Surely it was infinitely preferable if a man took the word 'no' to mean no.

Harry could just vacate the table, find somewhere else to sit before Violet arrived. However, that would mean giving up, and Harry hated giving up. She was far more stubborn than that. She crossed her arms over her chest and mimicked his body language.

"Listen, buddy," she said, no longer putting any effort into making her tone polite. "That seat is taken. I'm waiting to meet my _girlfriend_."

"No," the man said, and Harry almost scoffed – God, how stupid could this man possibly be? – until the man continued, "You're waiting to meet my wife."

Something cold clenched around Harry's heart. Suddenly, she couldn't breathe.

The man continued, "I was so relieved when I reached the cafe today and found out that this 'Harry' she spent so much time texting was a woman. I was so sure she was having an affair, but then _you_ were the one who arrived, and I thought, you were just a friend, I was wrong to jump to conclusions. Thank you for confirming my suspicions."

How could she have been so stupid? Harry wanted to hit herself. She had never met Violet's husband in person, but there were pictures of him in their house. She'd never looked at any of them for long, but she should have known, should have been able to recognise the man when he sat down. She shouldn't have spoken so carelessly. She could have just said one word different, and suddenly this would have been a casual encounter between friends, not a secret affair.

"She's not coming, is she," Harry said tightly, after a pause.

"No, she doesn't know you're here," he replied, and it wasn't hard to work out how Violet had apparently organised a meeting without knowing it existed.

"You stole her phone," she said. "You sent the text."

"I borrowed her phone," Violet's husband corrected.

"Must say something about your relationship, doesn't it? That you don't trust your wife, so you felt the need to check who she's in regular contact with."

She saw Violet's husband's hands clench a little on the table. The expression on his face was hard.

"Seems I was right to be distrustful, wasn't I," he said. He leaned his elbows on the table and leaned forward, in a way that made Harry unconsciously lean back. He was taller than her, even sitting down, and it was clear that he was using that to his advantage. He was trying to look intimidating, and it was working. If they weren't in such a public location, Harry might have feared getting hurt.

"Let me make something very, very clear," said Violet's husband, his tone low and dangerous. "You are to never speak to my wife again. You are never to contact her, meet with her, and definitely never to sleep with her."

"I think your wife can make her own decisions about who she spends time with," Harry spat.

"Not where you're involved," the man said, and his voice was almost a growl. God, men really were just like dogs. He continued, "You seduced her. You manipulated her, used her, and forced her to be with you."

Harry scoffed. "I didn't force her to do anything," she said. "If you heard the kind of things she said to me when we're together, you'd know full well that she _wanted_ to spend time with me—"

Violet's husband slammed his hands down on the table, enough to make Harry – and a number of other customers – jump. It did not escape Harry's notice that he could have so easily hit her instead of the table. The thought alone made her heart race. It had never made sense to her, why Violet, who was so obviously unhappy with her husband, stayed with him. Now, she realised that maybe she had not had a choice.

Violet's husband reached across the table suddenly and grasped Harry's wrist, hard. She tried to pull out of his grip, but he was stronger than her. His nails dug into the fleshy skin on the underside of her arm. It hurt.

"If you ever speak to her again," he said, in a quiet tone that was even more terrifying than if he had been shouting, "I will kill you. Are we clear?"

"Is there a problem here?" said another voice, and both Harry and Violet's husband glanced over to the barista who had come to stand by their table. His voice was bright and casual in that typical customer service way, but there was something much less happy in his eyes, which flickered between Harry and the man across from her. Violet's husband released Harry's wrist.

"I was just leaving," he said, pushing the chair back from the table and standing. He looked at Harry once more, and he didn't speak, but he didn't need to – the threat was clear in his eyes. Then he turned, walking back out the door, the light jingle of the bell above it sounding him out.

"Are you all right?" the barista asked, his tone now much more gentle. Harry rubbed her wrist under the table. There were indents in her skin where his nails had dug into her skin.

"I'm fine," she said. "Everything's fine."

 _Today_

The Jones family own a nice house in central London. They're lucky enough to have a front yard, which is something John finds himself envious of. Flowers blossom nearby the footpath. A small table and chairs sit in the yard – somewhere to sit on the days where the sun decides to show its face in the London sky.

John follows Holmes to the door, and Holmes knocks. Inside, he can hear movement, footsteps as someone approaches the door, and it's only then that he realises he has no idea what they're going to say. Will Holmes tell the person behind the door that he is a consulting detective, investigating death threats that a woman has been receiving? Will the person behind the door demand to see a warrant, or close the door in their face? Holmes isn't technically a policeman. John does not know what kind of things he can do, in situations like these.

The door opens. The woman behind it is quite clearly the same woman who had featured in Harry's photographs, though the soft, content expression in the photographs is gone. She does not look rude or unpleasant, but there is something harsher about her features, something that had melted away in the photographs. Her gaze flickers between the two men, and John thinks, for a second, that something like recognition flickered in her eyes when she looked at him, but the expression is gone before John can work out whether he imagined it or not.

"Mrs Jones?" Holmes asks, and he lifts up a police badge, flashing it at her briefly. John is fairly certain that consulting detectives don't have police badges. John is also fairly certain that Holmes intentionally presented the badge too briefly for Mrs Jones to have the opportunity to work out whether or not it was real. He finds himself wondering exactly how legitimate this consulting detective business is. Holmes continues, "My name is Sherlock Holmes, and this is my partner, John."

There is a fraction of a second of hesitation before Holmes introduces John as his partner, but even so, the introduction takes John by surprise. He does his best not to show it. Pretending to be the detective's partner makes a lot more sense than explaining that John is Holmes' client. He notices that Holmes only introduces John by his first name – perhaps he does not want Mrs Jones to make the link between John and Harry.

Holmes continues, "Is your husband home?"

Mrs Jones shakes her head. "No, he's at work," she says – there's nothing in her tone to indicate that she suspects that the men at her door might not be actual policeman, though there's a frown on her face, an expression of confusion and concern that would be expected on the face of anyone who is not guilty and does not know what the police are doing at their door. "He'll be home sometime after six. I can give you the address to his office if it's urg—"

"No need," Holmes says, cutting her off. "We actually came here to see you. Might we come in?"

Mrs Jones frowns, and she hesitates for a brief moment before she gestures to the little set of table and chairs in her garden. "Take a seat," she says. Maybe she doesn't trust them all that much, John thinks – she's co-operating, yes, but she's keeping them outside her house rather than letting them come in. John doesn't blame her. He would probably be reluctant to let any police into his house, too, if he did not know why they were there.

"Would you like a drink?" Mrs Jones offers as they move to the table.

Holmes shakes his head. "No," he replies, and he slides into one of the four seats there. John sits beside him, and Mrs Jones sits across the table. The expression on her face is one of forced calmness, but the tension in her shoulders as she takes a seat makes it clear that she's not as calm as she is trying to seem.

John realises as soon as they're seated that he has no idea what the plan is. How do they approach the matter at hand? Do they confront her about her affair? Do they tell her about the death threats that Harry has been receiving? Do they ask general questions about Mr Jones, to gauge whether or not he is the sort of person to send letters of that sort?

As it turns out, Holmes has a plan.

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a folded slip of paper. John realises immediately that it is the note he had taken from Harry, the note he had given to Holmes as evidence that morning. "Do you recognise the handwriting?" Holmes asks.

Mrs Jones takes the note and unfolds it, and John watches as her expression shifts from bemused to horrified. Her face pales, and she looks almost nauseated. "What is this?" she asks softly.

Holmes ignores the question. "Do you recognise the handwriting?" he repeats. Mrs Jones doesn't even look up at him; she just stares at the letter in front of her.

"I—" she starts, but then she cuts herself off. It must mean that yes, she does recognise the handwriting. John doesn't believe she wrote the letter – her horrified expression is too genuine – but if she did not recognise the handwriting, she would have said so. The fact that she's not answering the question must mean that she is protecting the person who wrote it.

Holmes leans forward, elbows on the table. "We know about the affair," he says, without a hint of emotion in his tone.

Mrs Jones' eyes snap away from the note to look at Holmes. "I don't know what you're talking about," she says, almost automatically. Her response is too quick to be believable, even if they had not already had the evidence to show that it was a lie. Holmes lets out an exasperated sigh.

"Oh, please," he says. "This conversation will run a lot more smoothly if you don't waste my time by lying to me."

Mrs Jones gets to her feet. "I'd like you to leave," she says tightly, and John knows that this means trouble for them. They don't have an excuse to stay. They don't have a warrant, or any way to force her to speak. She's not a suspect, not really, and she is under no legal obligation to continue speaking to them if she does not want to. They need a different approach, now, before Mrs Jones calls the _actual_ police.

"Violet," he says, his gentle tone a sharp contrast to the harsh way that Holmes had been speaking before. He sees her eyes flicker towards him, which he takes as a good sign – she's listening. However, her body is still tense, and her expression is still hard. John continues, "My name is John Watson. Harry is my sister."

It does not have the desired, calming effect that John had hoped it would. Her gaze flickers between the two men at the table. "What is this?" she says. "You said he was your partner."

"For the purpose of the investigation, he is," Holmes replies immediately.

John speaks before Holmes has the opportunity to anger the woman any more. He uses her given name, in hopes that the more familiar name might calm her. "Do you have siblings, Violet?"

Violet is still for a moment, but then she nods her head once. "A younger sister," she says.

"Good," John says. "Then you understand what I'm going through. How might you react if you found out that your sister was receiving letters like that?" He gestures to the letter that is still in Violet's hand, and she glances down at it briefly, but says nothing. John continues, "We're not here because of the affair. You're in no trouble, I promise. I'm just here to help my sister."

She stays silent. John gives her time to speak, but when it's clear that she won't, he tries one more time.

"Please, Violet," he says. "All I care about is Harry, and if I'm right, you wouldn't want her to get hurt either. All I want to know is who is sending those letters, so I can protect her from them."

The silence stretches out between them again, but John sees something in her expression shift. Some of the hardness fades away. She doesn't meet their eyes, instead staring down at the letter. John gives her as long as she needs, motioning under the table for Holmes to remain silent as well. Finally, she speaks. "It's Simon's handwriting."

"Your husband?" John prompts, and she nods her head.

"Yes." She closes her eyes, and after another pause, she says, "But I don't understand. I didn't think he knew. Harry ended the affair weeks ago – why would he be writing these letters now?"

"This is not the first," Holmes says. "We have reason to believe that Harry has been receiving these letters for weeks."

It clicks immediately. Violet's eyes squeeze shut tightly, as though she's in pain. "That's why she ended it, isn't it." She says. It's not a question.

"Did Harry give any explanation?" John asks, and Violet shakes her head.

"Not really. She just – she sent me a text and told me she didn't want to see me anymore. I thought she just got tired of being... of me going home to Simon in the end. I didn't realise..."

"Has Simon's behaviour towards you changed at all in the past weeks?" Holmes asks, and Violet shifts in apparent discomfort.

"Not really," she says slowly. "I mean, he's been more interested in my day, I guess. Asking me what I've been up to. He's away with work so much, I thought maybe he just missed me. I've had no reason to lie, so he's had no reason to be suspicious..." She tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear, and there is silence for a moment before she speaks again. "I know you must think I'm a terrible person. That I wanted the best of both worlds, and I was stringing them both along for my own gain. But that's not true at all."

Holmes lets out a bored-sounding sigh. "Oh?" he says. "Please, explain."

Violet shifts in discomfort, absently rubbing her wrist with one hand. "Simon and I – I was just out of school when I married him. It was new and exciting and a little spontaneous, and we both rushed into it. It didn't feel rushed – we'd been dating for a couple of years, but we were both so young. We should have given it more time. I can see that now. Maybe if we had, I'd have seen the signs."

"The signs?" Holmes prompts, and Violet drops her gaze. The expression on her face is one of guilt, and immediately, John knows what's on her mind.

"Does he hurt you?" John asks gently. Violet doesn't respond verbally, but the tension in her body language makes it clear what the answer is.

"He's not a bad person," she says quickly, before either John or Holmes has the opportunity to say anything else. "I know he loves me. He's just always had a hot temper, you know? I almost left him once, before I met Harry, but..." She trails off, and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. "I couldn't leave him for Harry. He'd blame her, and he'd hurt her. I wasn't ever going to do that to her."

"It seems he already blames her," Holmes says, gesturing to the letter held tightly in Violet's hands. "And you would know better than anyone if he is likely to go through with any of his threats."

Silence stretches between them for a moment. Violet looks down at the letter rather than meeting their eyes. After a moment, John speaks. "We can help you," he says softly. "We can get you out of here, and we can make sure that both you and Harry are safe. You just have to help us, too."

Violet takes a deep breath, and closes her eyes. "Okay," she says.

 _One Week Later_

Domestic abuse cases are not typically Detective Inspector Lestrade's division. However, where Sherlock Holmes is involved, Lestrade tends to make exceptions – perhaps only because Sherlock Holmes does not often give Lestrade a choice. He had to bend the rules a bit to deal with the case at hand – some of the evidence in question was a threatening note directed to someone other than the abuser's wife, but the recipient had not come forward herself. Usually, that would put the investigation on hold. However, the fact that the abuser's wife was a victim, too – not of threatening notes but of a different sort of crime – was enough to make a start on the investigation. The wife's statement was enough to get the ball rolling, and after that, collecting evidence against Simon Jones was easy.

Violet, of course, still has a long road ahead, but a week after her visit from Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, she is already in a better place. The police were able to help her get out of the house, a restraining order put in place to keep her safe. She still finds herself awake at night at every tiny sound, a part of her mind – however illogical – fearing her husband has found her, but in time, she will begin to feel more safe.

For the moment, she is staying with her sister, until she can find her own place. She hopes to get in touch with Harry again, soon. Maybe Harry might even invite her to stay, if Harry can forgive her for everything. However, she will not try to get in touch with Harry until her divorce has been finalised. She doesn't want Harry to be the 'other woman' again. She doesn't want to be with Harry until she can be exclusive with her.

John catches up with Harry a few days after meeting Violet Jones, to ask her how she is doing. She tells him that the letters have stopped – they were daily, before, but now it has been several days without a word. She tells John that this is proof that he should not have worried. She was right in saying that there was no need to go to the police, because, just as she had thought, the letters stopped on their own. John doesn't tell her. She can believe whatever she wants to believe; the only thing that matters to John is that she is safe.

Exactly one week after the case, John finds himself walking up the front stairs to 221B Baker Street. He hadn't realised that he had made the decision to head there until he found himself at the door. He hesitates for a moment, before ringing the doorbell. This time, the man answers it much more quickly than before. He's holding the neck of a violin in one hand, and a bow in the other.

"John," he greets. He sounds almost a little bit surprised to see John there. John wonders if he had been expecting someone else.

"I'm not interrupting anything, am I?" John asks, and Holmes shakes his head.

"Not at all. Please." He steps to the side to let John in, gesturing to the stairs with his bow. John steps inside, letting Holmes close the door before following him up the stairs. When they reach the flat, Holmes moves to the same chair he had sat on last time John was here. When he glances over and sees that John is still standing, he gestures to the chair across from him with his bow and John follows the unspoken request to take a seat.

"I trust your sister has not received any more letters?" Holmes asks after a beat.

John nods. "They've stopped now," he says. "She thinks that whoever was sending them simply gave up." He pauses for a moment, and then adds, "You saved her life, and she has no idea."

Holmes shrugs his shoulders dismissively. "That's something of an exaggeration. You are as much responsible for your sister's wellbeing. You were the one who convinced Violet to go to the police. I merely pointed you in the right direction."

"If it weren't for you, I would not have known that Violet existed at all. So, thank you. Really. You were brilliant."

Holmes blinks, and drops his gaze, and John gets the impression that Holmes does not get compliments like that very often. It strikes him as strange – surely a man who can do what Holmes did gets told as much frequently. From what John has seen, there is every reason for people to tell Holmes he is brilliant.

Silence stretches between them for a moment, and John is surprised to note that it doesn't feel awkward, even though he barely knows this man. It feels comfortable, in a strange sort of way. However, John does take it as an indication that their conversation is over, and it likely means that it is time to leave. He gets to his feet. "Thank you again, Mr Holmes," he says.

"Sherlock, please."

John smiles a little. "Thank you, Sherlock," he corrects.

John straightens his shirt, and Sherlock stands, perhaps to come and see him out. However, before John has the chance to leave, Sherlock speaks again. "You should know," he says, "I don't typically work with clients in this way."

"What do you mean?" John asks.

"In most circumstances, I'd have worked on the case alone. I'd not have taken a client to a suspect's house, let alone treated them as a partner."

"Oh," John says, though he had gotten this impression in the split second of hesitation when Holmes had introduced him as a partner. He pauses for a moment, and then asks, "So why did you let me come along?"

Sherlock holds John's gaze for a moment, and then looks away without a verbal response. Maybe, John thinks, that's because there was no real response to give. Maybe John had been allowed to tag along because it was practical. Maybe it was simply because John had made it clear that he was coming along whether Sherlock had wanted him to or not. Maybe there was no reason at all. Whatever the explanation, it had worked. They had convinced Violet to go to the police, they had managed to stop the person who was sending those letters to Harry. Harry is safe, now, and if John's involvement in the case was even in the slightest bit responsible for that, then John has no reason to question it.

"Well, thank you again," John says. "Harry might not know she should be grateful for you, but I am."

"You've thanked me three times in the past five minutes," Sherlock says. "I gather you're grateful."

"I am," John says with a smile. He glances at the door, and realises then that he doesn't want to leave. He knows that, unless something awful happens, he doesn't have a reason to come back to this flat, and it's disappointing. There's something fascinating and alluring about Sherlock, and this life Sherlock leads. Once John walks out the door, this chapter of his life will be closed. He'll go back to a much more boring life.

Yet, John does not have a reason to stay. He tries not to look too disappointed. "I'll see myself out," he says. "Thanks again, Sherlock."

"No need to make your appreciation redundant," Sherlock says, getting to his feet. "Goodbye, John. Perhaps I'll see you again, should you need a detective."

John half-smiles. "I'll keep that in mind."

He hesitates, and then turns, and walks down the stairs and out the door. He tries not to think of the finality of closing the door behind him.

He walks out to the end of the street, looking left and right for a cab. He raises his hand to signal one, and then he hears the door behind him. He glances over his shoulder, and finds Sherlock, leaning against the doorframe.

"On second thoughts," Sherlock says, "I could use a partner."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Trigger warnings for homophobia and abuse.


	18. Escape

**Author's Note:** A million thanks to the beautiful Becca (Ao3's LlamaWithAPen) for beta-ing this for me.

* * *

Prompt from user Cyrania de Bergerac: _Sherlock and John first meeting while captured by someone then having to escape together._

* * *

 **Escape**

Pain.

It's the first thing that John becomes aware of. His entire body is aching. His muscles feel stiff, sore, and impossible to move. His limbs feel heavy. His head is throbbing, and his stomach is churning. Everything hurts.

Barely conscious, he tries to roll over, to find a comfortable position. His mattress is cheap, and it always feels hard against his back, but it has never been this uncomfortable. He shifts, and his shoulder twists underneath him. There is no give beneath his weight. He is not on his mattress. Even his mattress isn't as hard as a rock. He has to be on the ground.

He tries to force his eyes open, but it only makes the throbbing in his head worse. He groans. The sound is hoarse; his throat feels dry.

It takes several feeble attempts before he can make his eyes stay open. Even when he manages, he has to blink several times to focus. It's dark. It's not pitch black – there is a dull light that allows his eyes to focus after some time, but it's not bright enough to fully illuminate the room. He can only see colourless shadows. He turns his head to find the source of light, and finds it coming from a small window at the top of the wall. The window is not covered by glass, only bars.

He tries to roll over, even though his entire body seems to scream in protest. He needs to sit up and work out where he is. He tries to use his hands to support himself, and he finds them trapped. There is a pressure against his wrist, securing his hands together, keeping them behind his back.

His mind throws up images of the stories he has heard. Prisoners of war. Torture. He was lucky; he was a doctor first, a soldier second, and was never put into situations where becoming a prisoner of war was a real risk. He knows people who weren't so lucky. He knows the stories of the people who have died there. Worse still are the stories of those who came out alive.

He doesn't remember what happened. He doesn't know how he got here, doesn't know where _here_ is or where he was before. Even though his mind is slow, his heart is racing. He can't breathe. He's going to die here. He's going to die.

There is a sound beside him. His instincts are fast, and his head snaps in the direction of the noise. It only worsens the pain.

"You're awake," says an unfamiliar voice, and he can see a shadow. He blinks several times to get his eyes to focus. The shadow is moving closer in awkward, shuffling movements. He tries to move away. His body is stiff, but he manages to shift along the ground. Something sharp scratches his back through the fabric of his jumper. Jumper. He's wearing a jumper. Why would he be wearing a jumper?

The figure stops moving. It – he – is a little bit closer now. John cannot see him clearly, but he can make out some of the man's features in the dull light. Dark curls, long limbs. The figure is on his knees, but even then, he looks tall. He is dressed in a large coat. It looks out of place. Why isn't he in uniform?

Blink. Focus. Think.

He's not in Afghanistan. He was shot and sent home because of a pain in his leg, stopping him from walking. He cannot be a prisoner of war if he is not at war.

The comfort that this thought offers is limited. He might not be a prisoner of war, but he is a prisoner. He is somewhere dark, and his hands are tied. He doesn't know what happened. He doesn't know how he got here.

He tries to move again, but it only causes more pain, and he groans.

Think.

He was on his way home from work. He had taken the Tube. He had wanted to take a cab, but he was trying to save money. He could not afford to take the cab every day. The Tube was cheaper, and it was only a little more inconvenient. It only meant a little bit of walking. His therapist had recommended walking. She said it would be good for his leg.

He had taken the Tube. He had gotten off the Tube, and then – what?

He doesn't remember. He had gotten off the Tube, and now he is here.

Wherever here is.

Again, John tries to move, to get himself to sit up. He doesn't want to lie here on the ground, especially not when there is a stranger here with him. This position makes him feel vulnerable. Any position will make him feel vulnerable, with his hands tied behind his back, but sitting up would still be better than lying on the ground. He shifts, and he manages to move his legs. His ankles aren't tied. That's good. At least he can kick.

With some difficulty, John manages to get himself upright. He rolls onto his side, curls his legs up underneath him, and then he sits up on his knees. His leg aches. He tries to ignore it.

His eyes focus on the stranger, who has made no attempt to come any closer since John tried to move away. Maybe he isn't a threat. Maybe he doesn't want to harm John. Now that John's eyes are a little more used to the darkness, he can see that the man's hands are behind his back. Maybe his hands are tied too. Like John, the man is a prisoner.

"Are you all right?" the man asks, once John is sitting up.

John's response is to scoff, because no, of course he's not all right. He's in pain, and he's tied up God-knows-where. Nothing about this is the faintest bit all right.

He looks around, blinking hard in an attempt to focus. The room that they are in does not appear to be very big, though it's difficult to gauge distance in the dark. It looks empty, aside from a staircase, leading upwards. It means they're downstairs. John turns his head to look at the small window, and now that he's sitting up, he can see that the window appears to be at ground level – John can see dirt and grass there. That, coupled with the staircase, tells John that they are underground. Maybe they're in a basement.

"Where are we?" John asks. His voice doesn't sound like his own.

"By my estimation, we're about half an hour outside of London," the man replies, "though I can't say for certain in which direction we were travelling."

John squeezes his eyes shut tight, trying to will away the pain in his head. "Christ. Why are we here?"

"We were abducted."

That's not exactly what John was asking. "Why? What do they want?"

"They want me, obviously," the man says dismissively. "You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. You would have been perfectly all right if you had not been stupid enough to try to play hero."

John opens his eyes again. "What?"

"You don't remember," the man says. It doesn't sound like a question. "No, of course you don't, you have only just woken up, and you undoubtedly have a lower tolerance than me. You'll remember shortly. They knocked you out, but the drug shouldn't have caused any permanent amnesia." He pauses for a beat, and then asks, "What do you remember?"

John shakes his head. "Not a lot. I remember getting off the Tube. That's it."

"That's it?" the man asks. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. You walked past an alleyway, do you recall?"

"Alleyway," John repeats. There are a few alleyways that he passes on the way from the Tube station to his bedsit. One of them in particular sticks out in his mind. He remembers passing that particular alleyway. Something had happened. What had happened?

Focus. Think.

He was walking home, and he had passed the alleyway.

No, that's not right, he didn't pass the alleyway. He had started to walk past it, but something had caught his attention. Something made him stop.

He focusses on the man's face in the dark. There is a cut on his head, under his hairline. Blood streaks down his face. In the darkness, it looks black.

It clicks into place, and the memory filters in. It's fuzzy, but it's there. He had been on his way home, and he had passed the alleyway. He had seen this man, and two, maybe three other men with him. The man was being attacked, being hurt. John had rushed in to help.

John can't remember very much after that, but judging by the fact that they're both here, he gets the feeling he didn't help very much.

"You were attacked," John says, seeking confirmation that his memory is accurate.

The man nods his head. "Yes. And then you, for whatever insane reason, thought it was wise to come and help." He pauses, and then adds, "That's not to say that I don't appreciate the act of heroism, but now they have two hostages instead of one. Makes our impending escape a little more difficult.

"Escape?"

The man gives him a look that is quite clearly unimpressed even in the darkness. "Would you rather stay here?"

"That's not what I meant," John says. "How are we escaping?"

The man is silent for a beat, before he says, "I'm working on it."

John resists the temptation to sigh.

He looks around, seeking out something, anything that could help with their daring escape, but the room is empty. Whoever has trapped them here hasn't given them anything to work with. John doesn't even know what sort of thing he would want to find in a room like this. Something heavy, to knock the door down? A key? A gun?

He turns to face the other man again. "Why were you attacked?" he asks. "What did those men want with you?"

"They're part of a criminal network that I've been investigating," the man replies. "It appears my work did not go unnoticed."

"You're a detective?" John asks. The thought comes with something hopeful: maybe a detective, a professional, will have a partner. Maybe someone is out looking for them.

"Consulting detective," the man corrects.

"Oh," John says, which roughly translates to, 'I have no idea what a consulting detective is or how it differs from your standard, run-of-the-mill detective, but we're being held prisoner in an unknown location and I think we have other priorities right now'.

"We need to get out of these restraints," the man says after a slight pause, interrupting John's thoughts. "Your ankles aren't bound, are they? Just your wrists?" When John nods his head, the man continues, "Good. Excellent. That makes our job a little bit easier. I assume it's a zip tie and not a rope?"

John strains against the binding, twisting his hands so he can feel it against his skin. He had thought that it must have been a rope before, but now that he's paying attention to it, he notices that it feels more like plastic. "I think so, yeah," he says.

"Good. Good, that means they didn't replace it. Perfect, it's easy to get out of."

"How?"

The man lets out a sigh. "You don't know how?"

"Why would I know how to get out of zip ties?"

"It's standard self-defence knowledge, anyone should know how to – never mind. I'll talk you through it. Can you move? It's easier if your arms are in front of you."

John twists, trying to work out if he can slide his arms beneath his legs and bring them in front of his body, but a moment of squirming tells them that that requires a bit more contortion than his body is capable of. He shakes his head. "I can't."

"Figured as much," the man says with another sigh. "Fine. This works too, it will just be more difficult for you. What you need to do is stretch your arms up behind your back, as high as you can, and then bring them down hard. You should be aiming for your forearms to hit your hipbones. If the ties are tight enough, the pressure should cause them to break."

"Sounds easy enough," John say, while thinking, _Sounds easier said than done_.

He shifts so he is sitting on his knees, gives himself a moment while the room stops spinning, and then he gets to his feet. He's unsteady to start with, but he doesn't fall over. He can do this.

He leans his body forward a little, stretches his arms up as high as he can, and then he brings them down against his back. It doesn't work the first time, so he tries it again, harder. He can feel bruises blossoming over his skin, but it's not enough to break the zip ties.

"They're not tight enough," the man says after another few attempts. "Here, I'll tighten them."

John hesitates, and the man sighs.

"I'm not tightening them to make it harder for you, don't be paranoid."

"I'm locked up God-knows-where in bloody zip ties. I think I'm allowed to be paranoid."

"I cannot get out of my own bindings without assistance," the man says. "So it's in my best interest to get you out of yours, not to make it more difficult for you."

"Why can't you get out of yours?"

In response, the man shuffles on his knees, turning in the darkness so that John can see behind his back. The first thing John notices is that the man's hands are not tied with a zip tie, like John's, but instead with rope. However, it's not just his wrists. His ankles are bound as well, which explains why the man was moving on his knees, and there is a third rope that links his wrists and ankles together, limiting his range of movement.

"Why..." John starts, but the man answers his question before he finishes it.

"I was conscious before we reached our destination. I'd already freed myself from the zip ties by the time they opened the doors to the van. They thought it necessary to restrain me in such a way that I would not be able to get free again. So, as you can see, I need another set of hands to untie me, and you can't do much while you're in zip ties. Do you still doubt me?"

John lets out a breath. "No. No, I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't have doubted you in the first place, I just..."

"You have trust issues and you're currently under threat. It's hardly an unusual mental response. Now, zip ties. Come here and crouch down in front of me."

This time, John does as he is asked without further hesitation. He takes a couple of steps closer to the man, and then turns around, crouching down so that his wrists are level with the man's mouth. He feels the man clasp the end of the zip tie between his teeth, and then the man mutters, "Pull" as best he can with his mouth shut. John strains his hands against the zip tie, and that, coupled with the man pulling with his teeth, causes it to tighten around his wrists. The plastic cuts into his skin. John hopes he can get out of this quickly, before it cuts off his circulation and he loses feeling in his fingers.

The man lets go of the zip tie, and says, "Try it again. Hard, against your hipbones."

John straightens, and tries again. When it doesn't work, he feels panic pool into his stomach, and he worries he might never get out.

"Hard," the man repeats, with emphasis. "You're trying to break them; you won't have any success if you take it easy."

"I'm trying," John says, wriggling his wrists. This has to work. They have got to get out of here.

He lets out a breath, holds his wrists out behind him, and then he brings them down hard. His forearms strike his hips, and it hurts, but it doesn't matter. At the same time, he hears a snap, and the pressure on his wrists is suddenly released. The zip tie falls to the ground in two pieces, and John twists his wrists a couple of times, overwhelmed with relief as he finds himself capable of movement once more.

"Thank God," he mutters under his breath.

"Good," the man says. "Now, come untie me. Quick, before they come back."

John carefully steps past the man and lowers himself to his knees behind him. It's difficult to see the rope in the darkness. John can make out where the wrists are and where the rope is tied, but he can't make out any details of the knot itself. His hands slide over it in search of a loose part of rope, so that he can work his fingers into it. "The men who abducted us," he says. "How many of them are there?"

"Three, at my count," the man replies. "At minimum. There were two who attacked me, and the driver. If we're being held at their base of operations, there might be more."

"There might be less," John says hopefully. "Maybe the driver wouldn't have stayed."

The man scoffs. "Wishful thinking. They know who I am, they know how I work. They would know better than to leave us here with minimal security. They would know that one man would not be enough to keep me here."

"But three men is enough, apparently," John says. "They were still able to overpower you after you'd gotten out of your zip ties."

The man clears his throat. "Yes, well. I may have underestimated their collective strength and overestimated my tolerance to sedatives. It won't happen again."

John feels the rope give a little under his touch. He manages to hook a finger underneath one of the loops, and as he pulls, he feels it loosen. "You said they know who you are," he says. "Who are you?"

"Sherlock Holmes," the man replies. "The world's only consulting detective."

The job title still means as little to John as it did the first time the man said it.

"Right," he says. The rope loosens a little more, and the man – Sherlock – strains against it, stretching it around his wrists so that John can slide the rope off his hands. The moment he is free, Sherlock reaches behind him for the rope that is tied around his ankles, but his body won't twist enough to let him reach it. "Let me," John says, batting his hands away and reaching for the knot himself. As he works, he asks, "What are we dealing with here? What is this criminal organisation?"

"They're a group of drug smugglers," Sherlock explains.

"Drug smugglers who have branched out into abduction?"

"In a manner of speaking. They are part of a larger organisation – more accurately, a web that I've been investigating over the past year. They have contact, through various other people, with a man whom I have come to recognise as perhaps the most dangerous criminal mastermind that the world has ever seen. He is a much bigger threat than the smugglers themselves. I was close to taking this organisation down, and he realised. He was able to warn them about me."

"Who is he? The criminal mastermind?"

"His name is Moriarty. I have not had any personal contact with him. He sits above it all, like a conductor orchestrating various crimes all over the world without ever getting his hands dirty. Anyone who has contact with him instantly becomes more dangerous. He has resources, ways of getting people out of trouble. He can have people killed, bodies disposed of, crime scenes wiped so clean that you would never know that a crime had occurred. If Moriarty wants you dead, you can be sure that no one will ever find your body, and if they do, nothing will link you back to him."

The nausea worsens in the pit of John's stomach, and he feels the blood rush out of his face. He focusses on the rope beneath his hands, trying – and failing – to ignore the sick sensation. "But they haven't killed us," he says. "The smugglers."

"No," Sherlock says. "Which might be worse."

"How is that _worse_ than being killed?"

"It means they want something from me. I don't know what, but they have some sort of incentive to keep me alive. Maybe Moriarty has a price on my head that only applies if I'm alive. Maybe they believe I have information that they need. Whatever it is, there is a reason we're currently here instead of in a morgue." He pauses for a beat, and adds, "And if I have something they want, they might be willing to resort to means such as torture to get it from me."

"Then why are they keeping me alive?" John asks.

Sherlock doesn't reply.

John swallows thickly past the lump in his throat, and fiddles for a moment in silence before he manages to loosen the rope. Carefully, he slides it off one ankle, and then the other.

The moment Sherlock is free, he all but jumps to his feet. He is a bit unsteady at first, and his arms fly out to either side of his body to regain balance, but he manages to avoid falling flat on his face. John opts to stay sitting, because he's worried his legs might shake and give way beneath him if he tries to stand again.

"Do we have a plan?" John asks after a moment's silence. "For getting out of here."

"I'm working on it," Sherlock replies, making his way over to the stairs that lead up to the door. He walks with his arms stretched out in front of him like a zombie, trying to avoid bumping into anything in the dark. John follows him with his eyes, but once Sherlock begins to ascend the stairs, he disappears into the darkness.

Aware that he is useless, sitting here on the ground, John forces himself to get to his feet. He straightens his shirt and pats his pockets. "They took my phone."

"Of course they took your phone," Sherlock says from the top of the stairs. "What kind of criminals would they be if they hadn't? You can't very well be held prisoner if you have the option for calling for help."

There is the sound of a door rattling, which makes John start, until he realises that Sherlock is the one making the sound, and not someone else on the other side of the door who is trying to get in. After a pause, he hears Sherlock mutter, "I wish I had my lock picking kit." There is a moment of silence, and then John can hear the sound of footsteps as Sherlock descends the stairs. "I need a thin object," he says when he's reached the bottom.

"I don't know what kind of thin objects I'd have," John says, putting his hands in his pockets on the off chance that he has recently pocketed something that could work as a makeshift lock pick.

"Are you wearing a belt?" Sherlock asks suddenly. "One with a traditional buckle."

John is. It might not be the best lock pick they have, but it's better than nothing. John quickly undoes the belt and takes it off, handing it over to Sherlock.

Sherlock takes the belt and brings it close to his face to inspect it in the darkness, running his fingers over the buckle to get an idea of the size and shape. "It might work," he says, and he turns back to the stairs. John follows, not wanting to be left standing in the middle of the empty basement on his own.

Sherlock climbs to the top step, and John follows him up, stopping one step below him. A faint light filters in through the crack under the door, but it's not enough for John to be able to see what Sherlock is doing. He can tell enough from the sounds, however: the soft sound of metal sliding against metal as Sherlock tires to slide the belt buckle into the key hole. John watches in silence, praying to whatever higher power might exist that this will actually work.

It does. It takes several minutes, silence punctuated only by the sound of the buckle jiggling about in the keyhole, and occasionally, Sherlock letting out a soft sound of frustration. Then something clicks, and Sherlock says, "Yes!" and John knows that the lock has clicked open.

They can get out.

They're not out of the woods yet, and they won't be until they're out of this building altogether. They don't know what is waiting for them on the other side of the door. Yet, this is their first step towards escape. It's something.

Sherlock hands the belt back to John, who quickly puts it on.

"Be ready for anything," Sherlock mutters, and John nods his head, before Sherlock opens the door.

The hall that the door leads to is better lit than the basement. There are three windows, but they are boarded up, allowing only a small amount of light to enter. The hall looks just as empty as the basement. Paint is peeling off the walls. There is not a soul in sight.

John wishes he had his gun.

Sherlock leads the way, and John follows closely behind him, both of them keeping their backs to the wall. When they reach the end of the hall, there is another door, but this one is not locked, and John can't help but feel like this is too easy.

Sherlock glances over at John, and then opens the door, which leads into another hallway. Like the last, there are boarded up windows, but this one also has a few doorways – there is the closed door directly at the end of the hall, but a couple of doorways to their right, and one to the left. These doors are open, but there is nothing but darkness inside. In contrast, John can see more light coming from underneath the door at the end of the hall.

Sherlock takes the lead, taking slow, quiet footsteps, and John stays close behind. Sherlock looks in through the first door that they pass, but nothing seems to catch his attention, and he keeps walking towards the door at the end of the hall.

When he reaches the next set of doorways, he looks first through the door to his right. It's the wrong door to look through. The door to his left, it turns out, is not empty. They discover this too late, when a man runs out of that doorway and barrels straight into Sherlock's side.

The force pushes Sherlock back into the doorframe behind him, and he doubles over in pain. John realises when their attacker takes a step back that he was not unarmed. He withdraws a knife from somewhere under Sherlock's coat. The fact that Sherlock stays standing is a good sign, but the way he clutches at his stomach isn't so reassuring.

Their attacker draws the knife back, and John doesn't hesitate, rushing forward and grabbing their attacker by the back of his shirt, simultaneously aiming a kick at the back of his knee. It doesn't cause their attacker's legs to buckle like John had hoped, but it does stop him from trying again to stab Sherlock. He turns on John instead.

A quick glance at Sherlock tells John that it's unlikely that Sherlock will be much help for the moment being, which leaves John to fend for himself. He's unarmed, and even though he's good at hand-to-hand combat, that is a lot more difficult when his opponent _is_ armed. Their attacker takes a swing at John, and John can't fight back – he can only jump out of the way.

John needs to disarm their attacker. The only hope he has of incapacitating him without a weapon is to first make sure that they are both unarmed.

Again, the man thrusts the knife forwards, and John has to stumble backwards to stay out of the way. The hallway is long enough for John to move backwards to escape each swing of the knife, but it is not wide. Neither John, nor Sherlock, can get past the man to get to the door at the end of the hall.

John has to duck another swing from the man, but it's at the same moment that Sherlock manages to regain some of his strength. Sherlock dives as the man is swinging at John, ducking underneath the arm that is brandishing the knife and colliding with the man's midriff. Coupled with the force of gravity, the attack is enough to knock the man off his feet, causing them both to tumble to the floor. Seeing what may be their only chance, John rushes forward and slams his foot down hard on the man's wrist, forcing him to drop the knife. John kicks it out of reach immediately, because he can do that faster than he can bend down to pick it up, and he doesn't want to give their attacker a split second to grab his weapon again.

Their attacker, unfortunately, is prepared for unarmed combat as well. He brings his knees up to his chest so that he can kick Sherlock off of him, before rocking backwards on his back and using the momentum to jump to his feet. The position leaves their attacker facing Sherlock, and John, now, is behind him, closer to the door.

The idea of leaving Sherlock behind doesn't even cross his mind.

Their attacker throws a punch at Sherlock, which Sherlock blocks with his elbow and follows with a punch to the man's solar plexus. It winds him, but it is not enough to knock him off his feet. However, it does cause him to take a half-step backwards, and John grabs his shoulder to force him to turn around, throwing his fist at the man's face.

From there, their attacker's attention shifts to John. John ducks punches as best he can, counters them with his own at every opportunity he has. Their attacker is good, having clearly received training, and he is not easily brought down, but John is good too, and John's instincts are fast. He knows what he is doing. He throws punches, kicks his legs, and finally manages to aim a kick at the man's knees that causes him to stumble backwards, into Sherlock. His weight causes Sherlock to lose his balance, but Sherlock seizes the opportunity, bringing the man down with him. They fall backwards into a heap, and Sherlock wraps an arm around the man's neck the moment they hit the ground, tight. John can see the man struggle for a moment in an attempt to get free, but Sherlock tightens his hold, and then the man falls limp, unconscious.

Sherlock waits a moment before he loosens his hold, arm withdrawing but hand seeking the pulse point at the man's neck. His eyes find John's, and he nods once. "Just unconscious," he says, carefully pushing the limp body off his own. Once he is no longer pinned down by their attacker's body, he wraps one arm around his stomach, and goes to get to his feet. John sees him wince in pain, and so John offers a hand to help.

When Sherlock accepts John's assistance, John can see that Sherlock's hand is stained with red.

"You're bleeding," John says, and Sherlock withdraws his hand, tucking it under his coat again. John realises now that Sherlock is not just holding his stomach – he is putting pressure on a wound. John goes to push the coat out of the way so he can take a look, but Sherlock jerks back and shakes his head.

"It's just a scratch," he says.

"Are you sure?"

"We don't exactly have time to sit around and check," Sherlock says, looking down at his stomach. "Let's get out of here first, and—"

He trails off, his eyes locking on something behind John, widening. John doesn't have the chance to turn around and see what it is that Sherlock has seen. He doesn't need to. It's less than a second later when he hears something click behind him, and he knows the pressure that follows is the press of a barrel of a gun against the back of his skull.

"You're not going anywhere," says a woman's voice.

Sherlock's gaze flickers between John's eyes and the woman currently holding a gun to the back of John's head. He does not move from where he is standing. John finds himself regretting kicking the knife out of the way instead of picking it up.

"He said you were clever, Mr Holmes," the woman says. "He thought that this would be easy for you. He thought you'd have been able to escape before now. I think he would be disappointed in you." The gun pressed more firmly against the back of John's head, and John has no choice but to lean forward a little, chin to his chest. "Perhaps," the woman continues, "this one was slowing you down."

John fixes his eyes on the floor and doesn't move. Sherlock doesn't speak.

The woman behind him continues, "He has told us so much about you. He had us believe that you might be his equal. A simple abduction like this would be child's play for you. It seems he thought wrong."

"I'd love to meet him," says Sherlock, his tone much calmer than John feels. "There is so much I'd like to discuss with him."

The woman behind John laughs. The sound makes him feel sick. "All in good time, Mr Holmes. All in good time." There's a pause, and then she continues, "He told us we were not to kill you. I believe he wishes to have that opportunity himself. However, he gave no directions about the lives of anyone else unfortunate enough to get involved."

John feels his heart leap into his throat.

He has a split second to act before the woman behind him pulls the trigger, and he uses it. He whirls around, in the same movement grabbing the barrel of the gun so he can shove it out of the way. The bullet she fires buries itself deep into the wall. John brings his forearm down hard on the woman's wrist in an attempt to make her drop the gun, but she keeps her grip firm. She brings her knee up into John's groin, and then kicks his legs out from underneath him, and he falls on his back.

She goes to re-aim the gun, but Sherlock doesn't give her a chance. He barrels into her, knocking her arm to stop her from taking aim again. He is significantly taller than her, and he brings his elbow down on her shoulder, hard enough to cause her to crumple to her knees.

She's not unconscious, and she hasn't dropped her gun, but knocking her to the ground has given them a couple of seconds. They use it. "Up, get up," John hears Sherlock say, arms looping beneath John's to haul him to his feet, and then he's shoving John forward, towards the open door through which the woman must have entered. John doesn't need to be told twice.

They burst through the door, into yet another hallway. It's clear now that they are in an abandoned building. The wooden planks of the floor look like they might even give way beneath their feet. They are at an intersection with the choice to go either left or right, and no time to make the decision. They go left.

They race down the hall, around one corner, and then another. John can hear a third set of footsteps, and he knows the woman is after them. She knows where they are; she has made the same turns that they have. They turn another corner, and here, they have no choice but to go up a set of stairs. John knows that moving upwards is only going to get them further from an exit, but the woman is too close behind, and they cannot turn around and go back.

They rush through the door at the top of the steps, John kicking it shut behind him in the hopes to buy them a little more time, and they freeze.

There are no doors to other rooms, no other turns to take. They've found a dead end. The room is large, and empty, and there's nowhere to hide. There are footsteps coming up the stairs; they can't turn back. They're trapped.

Sherlock glances at him, and then looks towards the wall behind John. They're not trapped. They have one option.

"The window," Sherlock says, and John knows that it might not be the best idea, because they're one floor off the ground and could break bones if they land poorly when they fall, but it's the only chance they've got.

The footsteps are coming closer. They don't have time to hesitate.

John rushes for the window. The hinges are old and worn – though the window may have locked once upon a time, it does not anymore. It is easy for John to shove it open. It doesn't give him a lot of space to move through, but it is enough. He puts one foot up on the windowsill for leverage, hauls himself through the window and jumps.

In the split second that he spends in the air, John tries to control the way his body hits the ground. He tries to make sure that he lands first on his feet, and then immediately rolling onto his thigh, hip, and then his back, to spread the impact over a larger surface of his body. It doesn't quite work as well as it does in movies, but he doesn't land on his head, and so concussion is not a concern. It doesn't mean that the fall is not painful, and for a second, John cannot get up, because everything hurts. He knows he does not have long. They only have a moment before the woman gets through the door and takes aim for the window. She will have less of a chance of hitting them from a distance, but the possibility is still there.

A thump beside him tells John that Sherlock has hit the ground too, with a noise that sounds something like a wince. Immediately, however, Sherlock says, "Get up, keep going."

John quickly takes stock of his injuries – he is bruised, cut, and scratched, but nothing seems to be broken – and he pushes himself to his feet.

The building that they have just jumped from is not the only building in the area. There are a number of buildings of various heights, all looking equally run down and abandoned. More importantly, it means that there is somewhere they can get out of sight. John just needs to run around the corner, duck behind a building, and it buys them some time, because they will be shielded from the woman and her gun.

That is, presuming there is no one else around the corner waiting for them – but they don't have time to think about it. Right now, John just needs to run.

There's a sound of sirens in the distance, and John hopes that they are coming towards them. If not, John hopes that at least the sirens will give the woman a reason to not give chase.

He's barely made it two steps before there is a cry from behind him, and John looks over his shoulder. Sherlock managed to get to his feet, but the moment he had taken a step, his leg had buckled. John can see him clutching his ankle. It's sprained, or perhaps even broken. Sherlock is trying to stand again, trying to push past the pain, but his ankle won't hold his weight.

John doesn't even consider leaving the man behind.

He turns and sprints back towards the other man, ducking down to lift one of Sherlock's arms around his own shoulder. He wraps his own arm around Sherlock's waist and says, "Come on", as he hauls the man to his feet. They cannot move as fast now, and Sherlock limps with every step, but John holds some of his weight, and it's enough to support him, keep him standing.

They just have to get out of sight. The sound of sirens is coming closer, and maybe, just maybe, they will be safe. They just have to get out of sight.

A gunshot rings out behind them, and John ducks instinctively, but the bullet hits the ground. The woman had a handgun – she would have to have good aim to hit them, a moving target, over this distance. Yet, perfect shots to happen, sometimes even accidentally. John hears another gunshot ring out, and he tries to move faster. Even the approaching sirens are not reassuring, if they die before help can come. They are out in the open. They are not safe.

There is a flash of movement in the corner of John's eyes, and John can hear the sound of the gun again, and then the ground is rushing up to meet him, and his head is spinning, and everything hurts and everything feels weak.

Then there is nothing at all.

OoO

John wakes to bright lights, to white walls and white sheets and the steady _beep, beep, beep_ of a machine echoing his heart rate back to him.

For several moments, he lies there, blinking up at the ceiling. He feels unwell, and sore, but he doesn't wake with the same kind of black spots in his memory as he did when he woke up in the basement – however long ago that was. He remembers jumping out the window. He remembers going back for Sherlock. He remembers rushing back to help, hearing gunfire, falling, hitting the ground.

He would think that he had been shot, that one of the bullets hailing down from the window had struck him, but he is not in enough pain. He knows what it is like to be shot, in all its gruesome detail. This feels nothing like that. His entire body feels sore and weak, but there is no one particular area that is worse than anywhere else (with the exception, perhaps, of the throbbing of his head).

He blinks several times to focus in the light, and then he turns his head to one side. Here he can see the monitors that he is hooked up to. He can see his heart rate and blood pressure. They're normal. That's a good sign.

He turns his head to the other side. In this direction, there is the chair. Sitting on this chair is Sherlock. This sight might be even more unexpected than the fact that John has woken up in a surprisingly good state in a hospital.

One of Sherlock's legs is curled up underneath him, and the other is stretched out and resting on the end of John's bed. The foot on the bed is wrapped in bandages. Sherlock's head is leaning on his own shoulder, and he looks as though he is asleep, but after a few seconds of John staring at him, trying to process the fact that he is in a hospital and Sherlock is in his room, Sherlock straightens suddenly. He blinks a couple of times and meets John's gaze.

"You're awake," Sherlock states, and then frowns. "How long have you been awake for?"

"Not long," John says. "Just woke up."

Sherlock makes a thoughtful noise, and then reaches up to rub his eyes. "How are you feeling?" he asks after a moment.

"Good, actually. Unexpectedly good. What happened?"

"What do you remember?"

"Being shot at."

"Well, you weren't shot, obviously," Sherlock says, shifting on his chair. "At least, not with a bullet. She had rather terrible aim. However, there was another man with slightly better aim, and a tranquilizer gun."

That, John thinks, makes a lot more sense. "Why aren't we back in the basement, then?" he asks.

"The police turned up about the same time you were hit," Sherlock explains.

"Oh. Thank God for that."

Sherlock snorts. "No need to thank any sort of religious figure. Thank my brother for not being an idiot and monitoring the CCTV systems."

"Then, thank your brother for me."

"Not likely. If I thank him, he'll take it as my acceptance that I owe him something."

John isn't sure what to say to that. He looks over Sherlock's form, and then asks, "Are you okay?"

Sherlock scoffs. "I'm not the one who has been hooked up to various monitors," he says, gesturing to John and the IV in his arm. "I'm fine. It would have taken a higher dosage of tranquilizer to bring me down."

John gestures to Sherlock's foot. "You're not completely unharmed, though."

"No, I'm not," Sherlock says, "but it's just a sprain." He pauses, and then he looks up at John, his expression becoming almost accusatory. "You realise you would have avoided this whole hospital visit had you not gone back for me, yes?"

"And left you behind to die?"

"I wouldn't have died. She had awful aim, I told you."

"Accidental hits happen."

"Regardless. You could have saved yourself."

"Well, I'll keep that in mind."

Sherlock's lips pull up into a smirk. "Do you always play the hero?"

John doesn't think about it like that. He didn't go to Afghanistan to be a hero. He didn't go back for Sherlock to be a hero. What John does, he does because he has the power to save someone. As far as he is concerned, not going back for Sherlock would have been as wrong as pulling the trigger himself. It was never his intention to be heroic. It was just his intention to make sure Sherlock didn't get killed.

He isn't sure how best to put that into words, so he looks down at the sheet over his lap and says nothing.

For a moment, there is silence, and then Sherlock says, "John," and when John looks up at him and meets his gaze, he says, "Thank you."

A small smile pulls over John's lips. "You're welcome, Sherlock."


	19. Never Have I Ever (met someone like you)

**Author's Note** : I read the prompt for this and meant to turn it into a happy, fun, lighthearted fic, which I imagine the prompter had in mind. It didn't quite turn out that way. Sorry (not sorry).

A million thanks to Becca (Ao3's LlamaWithAPen) for fixing up my typos and making me laugh with her comments.

* * *

Prompt from Guest user "Person": _How about one where they're at a party and are dragged into games together?_

 **Never Have I Ever (met someone like you)**

Typically, this sort of thing was not Sherlock's scene.

To say that Sherlock wasn't a particularly social individual was a gross understatement. Sherlock did not get on well with people. He found that interacting with people was a draining experience, because other people's minds did not work anywhere near as fast as his own, and he was constantly frustrated by the need to slow down and explain things whenever he spoke. Added to this was the fact that Sherlock was not tactful at the best of times, and that made him a lot less likeable to anyone else. People did not like feeling like idiots, even though they were, and so, people did not like spending time with Sherlock. Other people avoided Sherlock, and Sherlock avoided other people.

So, this scene – a house party, with loud music and a large number of students who had had too much to drink – was not a scene that Sherlock found himself in very often.

Unfortunately, at this point, Sherlock had nowhere else to go. He could not go home, certainly not tonight, perhaps not ever. He could not face his furious father, or his tearful mother, and he could not listen to Mycroft telling him once again that he was nothing more than a stupid boy who did not understand anything of importance and should have kept his mouth shut. Sherlock did not want to go back there again. Sherlock did not want to see them.

He had left the house with no clear destination in mind, beyond finding somewhere relatively sheltered to stay the night. He knew that the university often failed to lock their labs (or, more correctly, failed to lock them with anything that was not easily picked), and sometimes even the libraries stayed open late. If he could find an open building, he could take shelter there, away from the cool London air. After tonight, he was not sure where he would go, but that was a bridge he could cross when the morning sun shed light on the world.

It was Victor Trevor who had found him, wandering the campus grounds long after most people had gone home. Victor was one of the few people who Sherlock actually got along with, at least in a relative sense. Victor was not as clever as Sherlock, but he was not an idiot either – the fact that Victor was doing a number of extension classes was proof of that. Additionally, Victor did not take offence in absolutely everything Sherlock said. It was quite refreshing.

Sherlock had not told him the whole story, of course. He did not want to discuss the details with anyone, even with someone whose company he did enjoy. Yet, he mentioned that he did not want to go home for the night, and Victor had told him to come back to his place instead. Victor's parents were out for the weekend, and Sherlock was welcome to crash there for as long as he needed. The only thing that Sherlock needed to be aware of was that Victor was hosting a party with "a few friends", but Victor assured him that that party would not run too late into the night.

This was a mistake, if not an outright lie. Victor's "few friends" ended up being more than a few friends, who had brought with them more than a few friends of friends, and in short, Victor's entire house was filled with people. There was not a single room in the building where Sherlock could go to be alone. He knew this for sure, because he checked every room in search of somewhere quiet, and he was utterly unsuccessful. The two bathrooms were occupied by girls touching up their make-up, and all of the bedrooms were occupied by couples taking advantage of the relative privacy. Sherlock promptly deleted the memories of said couples from his Mind Palace after closing the door.

This left Sherlock in the living room, standing by the wall, watching as people became progressively more drunk. Someone had thrust a drink of some form into Sherlock's hand several minutes ago, and he sipped it absently. Normally, Sherlock would steer clear of alcohol. He did not want to impede his thought process; he valued his mind too much. This time, however, just this once, he did not think it was a bad idea to stop thinking for a little while.

Unfortunately, as much as Sherlock would have been content to remain there in the shadows, watching the party without having to engage in major social interaction with any of the people there, he did not remain invisible for long.

"Sherlock!" yelled a familiar, slightly slurred voice. "Sherlock! Shirley!"

Sherlock squeezed his eyes shut tight, wishing that the childish notion of 'If I can't see you, you can't see me' had some truth to it. While Sebastian Wilkes was one of the people that Sherlock interacted with more frequently, Sherlock would definitely not call them friends. Their usual interactions consisted of Sherlock making deductions and Sebastian pointing out that his deductions were the reason Sherlock had no friends. As far as Sherlock was concerned, if people did not want everyone to know who they had been sleeping with the night before, they should not make it so glaringly obvious.

Sebastian stumbled over, putting one hand on the wall by Sherlock's shoulder to steady himself. "Shirley! There you are," he said, followed by a giggle, as though the variation of Sherlock's name was hysterically funny.

"Sherlock," Sherlock corrected.

Sebastian took no notice. "Victor said you were here. Not like you to come to parties. Thought you thought you were better than that."

"That's not precisely my reasoning."

Sebastian continued as though Sherlock hadn't spoken. "Maybe you're finally coming out of your shell. Coming along to play with the big boys now."

Sherlock rolled his eyes, and did not bother gracing the statement with a verbal response, if Sebastian was apparently not paying attention to anything Sherlock said.

However, Sebastian did notice the lack of response, even though he didn't notice the reason for it. "Aw, don't worry," he said, his voice equal parts condescending and teasing. "You just need to loosen up a little. Have another drink." He held up his own cup, as though prepared to pour its contents down Sherlock's throat should Sherlock refuse.

A hand clapped down on Sebastian's shoulder, and Victor came into view behind him. "All right, boys?" he asked.

Sebastian grinned, as though he did not even consider the possibility that there was something inappropriate about his behaviour. "Absolutely," he said. "Just telling Sher here," – ("Sherlock," Sherlock corrected under his breath)—"that he needs another drink to loosen up a bit."

"You know what, I'm sure that's a fine idea," Victor said calmly. "Why don't you go get another drink?"

"Sure," said Sebastian without argument (Sherlock filed away the words 'obedient when drunk' into Sebastian's folder in his Mind Palace), stepping past Victor and manoeuvring himself through the crowd to the drinks table. The moment he was out of the way, Victor stepped close so that he could be heard over the loud music.

"All right?" he asked, and he jerked his head in Sebastian's direction. "He's not scaring you off, is he?"

Sherlock scoffed. "Sebastian? Don't be ridiculous."

"Good," Victor said, and then he smiled. "Couldn't find you for a while there. Thought you might have run away on me."

Sherlock chose not to point out that he had nowhere else to go.

After a beat, Victor said, "As drunk as Sebastian is, he's not entirely wrong. It might be good for you to relax a bit. Come join the party, rather than standing here like a wallflower."

Sherlock made a face. "Mm. Parties. Human interaction. Not really my area."

Victor gave Sherlock a faintly amused look. "Come on," he said. "A bunch of us are going to play Never Have I Ever. You can join us."

"Never Have I Ever?"

"Drinking game. You say something you've never done, and anyone who has done it has to drink."

"Sounds thrilling," droned Sherlock. Victor rolled his eyes.

"It's a great way to find out people's deepest, darkest secrets and get smashed in the process. Come on, please?" After a pause, he added, "You probably won't even get that drunk. You've done really obscure things and you haven't really done any of the things that are usually the focus of these games."

"Like what?"

"You know, been in a relationship. Slept with someone. That sort of thing."

Sherlock averted his gaze briefly, though Victor made the statement with no hint of mockery in his tone. "All right," he said after a pause. "Fine. But only because I can recognise the benefit of finding out other people's secrets."

Victor grinned. "Great!" he said, and he grabbed Sherlock's wrist to drag him over to the forming circle of game-players.

As they moved through the crowd, Victor seemed to try to collect anyone else who he believed might be interested in playing the game. He tapped people on the shoulder as he passed, saying the name of the game and gauging whether or not they were interested in playing. Some of them were, and moved towards the game-players when Victor jerked his head in that direction, while others shook their heads and refused. Victor did not bother trying to convince these people. Perhaps that was for the better, Sherlock thought – there were too many people at the party for everyone to play.

They walked past a blonde man, a couple of years older than Sherlock, who was looking around with a slightly concerned expression on his face. Sherlock couldn't help but notice that something about him seemed familiar, though he was not sure that he had really seen this man before.

"Watson!" said Victor, grabbing the young man's arm to get his attention. "Come play Never Have I Ever with us."

"Can't," Watson said apologetically. "I'm driving."

"You don't have to drink," Victor said. "Grab a soft drink or something. We won't tell anyone it's not alcoholic."

Watson seemed to smile slightly at that, though it didn't reach his eyes. He looked over his shoulder, looking around the party. "I need to go find my sister first. Have you seen her?"

Sister. _That_ was why the young man looked familiar. Sherlock had not seen this Watson before, at least not tonight, but he had seen someone who looked quite familiar to him. Someone who shared his features.

"Your sister is the one with red hair, correct?" Sherlock asked, drawing Watson's attention away from Victor.

"Yeah, do you know her?" he asked.

Sherlock shook his head. "No, but I can see the family resemblance. I believe your sister was up in one of the bedrooms."

He left the sentence at that, aware that pointing out that Watson's sister was up there with another woman might be a bit not good, but it seemed that was not a secret that Sherlock needed to keep. John asked, "Was she up there with Clara?" and at Sherlock's confused expression, clarified, "Short, brunette?"

It was a vague description, but it was consistent with what Sherlock had seen, so he nodded his head.

Immediately, he saw Watson relax, and he added, "Good. Okay, good."

Deduction: Watson's sister and the brunette were in a relationship that her brother approved of, and Watson must have trusted the brunette enough to believe that his sister was safe if they were up there together. Interesting.

"All good?" Victor asked, and when Watson nodded his head, he grinned. "Great! Now you don't have an excuse. Come play Never Have I Ever with us."

Watson looked thoughtful, and Sherlock thought for a moment that he was trying to come up with another excuse, but then he sighed. "Yeah, all right, lead the way."

Victor grinned, and he led them both through the crowd, coming to the circle of people in the adjoining room. Sherlock took a seat, with Victor on one side of him and Watson on the other, and he grabbed the bottle in the middle to re-fill his drink. He was probably wasting alcohol doing so. Sherlock knew that his experiences were very different from the experiences of his peers, and based on Victor's description of the game, he probably would not need to take very many sips.

Like Victor said, he probably would not get very drunk.

OoO

Sherlock got very drunk.

At first, the game played out just as Sherlock had expected it to. People chose fairly ordinary things to say, and many of those things were things that Sherlock had not done.

"Never Have I Ever been on a sports team." (Watson, Victor, and a couple of other faces in the crowd took a sip).

"Never Have I Ever watched Game of Thrones." (The majority of the group took sips, after making sounds of horror.)

"Never Have I Ever had sex." (A little over half of the group took a sip. Sherlock ignored the smug look that Sebastian was giving him over the rim of his cup.)

There were a few statements that did lead Sherlock to take a sip, such as "Never Have I Ever been overseas" and "Never Have I Ever run away from home" (the latter one also led Watson to take a sip beside him), but for the most part, each statement was something that Sherlock had not done.

The more alcohol people drank, the more specific some of those statements became, especially when it came to relationships. Sherlock did not understand why people were angry when he deduced who they had slept with the night before, because here they were, happily sitting in a circle and confessing to all the intimate activities they had partaken in.

After a while, however, somebody must have noticed that Sherlock was hardly drinking, and they decided to rectify that. Suddenly, the statements went on a very different path, and suddenly, Sherlock was taking drinks.

"Never Have I Ever stolen from the chemistry labs." Drink.

"Never Have I Ever conducted experiments unrelated to school projects." Drink.

"Never Have I Ever broken into a building." Drink.

"Never Have I Ever helped the police on an investigation." Drink.

After a few of these statements, Sherlock realised that they were designed specifically to make him drink. By that point, he had had a bit too much to recognise that he could opt out of the game at any time.

"Never Have I Ever seen a dead body," someone said. Sherlock tipped his head back to drink, and a handful of people in the group made a sound of disgust. One person made a sound of intrigue instead.

"Never Have I Ever set the chem lab on fire," said the next person in the circle. Sherlock lifted his glass to his lips before making the discovery that it was empty.

"I need more," he announced, shifting to get to his feet. He had only gotten to his knees when the world started spinning, and he swayed into the person next to him, who immediately wrapped an arm around Sherlock's waist for support. Sherlock vaguely remembered that the person next to him was the one with the red-haired sister, though he could not remember the man's name.

"I think you've had enough now," the man with the sister said. "You could do with some water, though."

"Water's not alcoholic," Sherlock said, and the man let out a slight laugh.

"No, it's not, that's the point," he said, before unwrapping his arm from around Sherlock's back, putting it instead under his arm so that he could help Sherlock get to his feet. "Come on, up you get."

With the man's assistance, Sherlock was able to clamber to his feet, though he swayed as soon as he was standing upright. The man's arm returned to its former place around Sherlock's waist to steady him.

"Easy there," he said.

Sherlock turned his head towards the man, trying to work out what his name was. What had Victor called him? Winston? Wilson? What-something?

"Whatters," Sherlock said, unintentionally speaking out loud.

"Pardon?"

"Whatters. What-something. Your name. Whatsy."

The man smiled a little. "Watson," he corrected. "John, actually. Call me John."

"John," Sherlock said, tasting the name on his lips. "That's boring."

John rolled his eyes. "We can't all have fancy names like Sherlock. Now come on." He put a little more pressure on Sherlock's back to get him to walk. "Let's go get you some water. You'll thank me in the morning."

Normally, Sherlock would resist, but with the amount of alcohol in his system, he found that he was much more pliant. Relying on John for support, he allowed himself to be guided through the crowd into the kitchen. John released him only when they were at a kitchen counter, so that Sherlock could lean on that for support while John poured him a glass of water.

There were two other men in the kitchen, having a conversation. They had to shout to be heard over the music, which meant that Sherlock could hear them too. One of them was telling a story of his girlfriend. Sherlock had only tuned in to hear the latter part of the conversation, but he could tell that the man's girlfriend was cheating on him. Could he tell that from the story? He could see that from something. That was a deduction. He wasn't entirely sure where the deduction had come from – but his brain would catch up soon.

"She's cheating on you," he said.

The two men turned to frown at him.

"No she's not," said the first.

"She is," Sherlock insisted.

"Dude, no one asked you," said the second.

"Well, you should have asked me, because I clearly know—"

"You don't even know Ash," the first man said, and Sherlock turned to frown at him. That was the stupidest thing Sherlock had ever heard, even though Sherlock could not see the relevance to the current conversation. Of course Sherlock knew ash. He knew 243 different types of tobacco ash. Did these men know 243 types of tobacco ash? Sherlock didn't think so.

"I know ash," Sherlock informed the men. The first gave him an unimpressed look.

"No, you don't," he said, and Sherlock straightened up, pushing off the counter so he could walk over to this man.

"I know ash!" he repeated loudly over the music. "Don't tell me I don't."

He punctuated this statement by poking his finger into the man's chest, which, as it turned out, was the wrong thing to do. It did not make these two men very pleased. They exchanged glances, and then one drew back his fist, and a part of Sherlock's brain processed the fact that he was about to get punched. The part of Sherlock's brain that was generally in charge of calculating the point of contact and determining the correct course of action to avoid the punch had not quite caught up yet.

Lucky for Sherlock, someone in the room did not have such impaired reaction times. A hand caught the fist that was aiming at Sherlock's face before it could make contact, and Sherlock looked over to notice that John had returned. One hand held the glass of water that he had gone to fetch for Sherlock. "I think that's enough," he said calmly, stepping in between them. This struck Sherlock as a dangerous move – would that not result in John getting hurt instead? However, John's presence seemed to have something of a calming effect on the two men. The one who had been about to punch Sherlock looked between John and Sherlock for a moment, before pulling his hand away.

"Sorry," he muttered.

"Consider it forgotten," John said, before turning back to Sherlock, pressing the glass of water into Sherlock's hand. "Come on. Let's get you somewhere quiet."

Sherlock nodded his head and went to take a step. He wobbled a little, and John immediately wrapped an arm around Sherlock's waist for support like he had done before, before gently guiding him through the crowd.

"Why did he listen to you?" Sherlock asked as they walked. "No one listens to me."

John's lips quirked up into a smile. "He's on the rugby team," he said. "Being captain has its perks."

They reached a door, and John knocked on it first, pushing it open only after he had not received an answer. On the other side of the door was an empty bathroom. Sherlock frowned.

"Why are we here?"

"Because you need somewhere quiet to sit for a few minutes, and I'm not sure if you'll be sick or not. Better not do it on Victor's floor, yeah?"

Sherlock continued to frown, but when John put a little bit of pressure on his back to push him into the bathroom, he went willingly.

John shut the door behind them, and Sherlock was immediately grateful that he had done so. He could still hear the music outside the bathroom, but the closed door muffled the sound, reducing the volume to something a little less deafening. Sherlock seated himself on the edge of the bathtub.

Without the game to distract him, he was beginning to realise that being drunk was not particularly pleasant. The room seemed to be spinning, and he felt quite ill. It seemed much messier than other experiences Sherlock had had.

"Think they were purposely trying to get me to drink," he said, looking down at his water glass.

John smiled a little. "You're just getting that now?" he said. "You're a bit odd, you know. Have you really done everything you claimed you did?"

"Obviously?"

"You've helped police work on cases?"

"I volunteer my assistance when they're out of their depth. Which is always."

"And you've seen a dead body?"

"More than one. That's unavoidable if you help the police."

John shrugged his shoulders. "You could have helped on non-murder cases."

"Where's the fun in those?"

John tilted his head to the side. "I'm not sure I'd call a murder case fun."

Silence stretched between them for a moment, as Sherlock sipped his glass of water. John slouched against the door behind him, and after a pause, Sherlock frowned.

"Why are you here?" he asked.

John shrugged his shoulders. "My sister thought I should get out of the house. And it's been a while since I've actually gone to a party."

"No, I mean, why here? In here? In the bathroom?"

"I'm keeping an eye on you."

"Why?"

John shrugged again. "Because I don't know that you have anyone else here for you."

The answer did not make Sherlock feel any less confused by the situation. "That hardly makes me your repons- responsibility."

"I know that," John said. "But, I don't know. No one should be stuck on their own when they get drunk. You need someone to take care of you, and I'm here."

"I can keep an eye on myself."

"No, you're drunk, so you can't."

Sherlock responded to that with a glare. At least, he hoped that it was a glare. John was a bit blurry. It was hard to work out exactly where he was supposed to be glaring.

After a pause, John said, "I've heard the guys at rugby talk about you a few times," he said. "I know you tend to keep to yourself. I don't want that to mean that you're left on your own, that's all. Doesn't make it my responsibility, but I still want to help."

Sherlock frowned for a moment, finding the idea that John – who is all but a stranger to him – wanted to stay with him almost impossible to believe. After a moment, he dropped his gaze down to his glass. "I'm not usually drunk," he said.

"I got that impression."

"Why aren't you drunk?"

John smiled wryly. "I'm usually the designated sober friend at these kinds of things."

"Why?"

"I've had a few negative experiences. Personally, I don't see the appeal."

"Oh," Sherlock said, and after a moment, he added, "In hindsight, I don't think I see the appeal either."

"Just keep sipping your water and don't have any more alcohol. You'll be fine."

Sherlock did just that, lifting his water glass to his lips and taking another sip.

Silence stretched between them for a moment, and John was the one who broke it. "So how come you're here?" he said, and then clarified, "At this party, I mean, not the bathroom specifically. You're obviously not a party person. No offence."

Sherlock took no offence, because John was right. "I'm not," he said. "Parties aren't my area. People aren't my area. I don't like people."

John smiled a little. "You don't like any people?" he asked. "What about Victor?"

Sherlock considered the question for a moment. "I don't dislike Victor," he said. "Victor is nicer than most idiots."

John nodded his head. "He is," he agreed, and then he tilted his head to the side. "So, you were willing to come along to his party just out of your friendship?"

Sherlock snorted. "No, of course not. I wouldn't be here out of friendship if I had a choice. There's nowhere else for me to go."

"How come?"

"I can't be around my family right now," Sherlock said, and then frowned. "I wasn't going to say that."

John shifted, and then he slid down to sit on the floor, back against the bathroom door. "Alcohol will do that to you," he said. "It's like a truth serum. Do you want to talk about it?"

Sherlock dropped his gaze to his glass and said nothing.

John continued, "I'm not going to force you to tell me, so, feel free to tell me to shut up. I know I'm a stranger. But I know you probably don't have anyone else to talk to about this sort of thing, and sometimes it helps to just have someone to listen. And, obviously, I'm not going to judge—"

"My father was having an affair," Sherlock said, cutting John off mid-word. He felt the blood drain out of his face as soon as the words left his lips, because he wasn't going to tell John that either. He wasn't going to tell anyone that. And yet, John was looking at him with a gentle expression, and it made Sherlock want to talk, to open up, to spill secrets that he was otherwise willing to take with him to the grave. Sherlock made a mental note to never consume alcohol again in the presence of someone else.

"I'm sorry," John said.

Sherlock shook his head and said nothing.

After a pause, John said, "I don't have the best relationship with my dad either, so I know what it's like to have someone who you're supposed to look up to do something to make you upset with them, or lose faith in them..."

Sherlock shook his head a little bit too vigorously. It made the world spin. "It's not that," he said. "It's not about my thoughts towards him."

"What do you mean?"

"Father doesn't want to speak to me," Sherlock said. "Mycroft doesn't want to speak to me. Mummy won't stop crying. I can't be there. I can't be around them, and none of them want me there."

For a long moment, John said nothing. Despite the fact that the music was still audible form the other side of the door, Sherlock couldn't help but feel like the silence in the bathroom overrode the sound. It felt as though it was the silence, and not the music, that was deafening. Sherlock dropped his gaze to the tiled floor beneath his feet. The floor was made up of tiny tiles, in mosaic-like patterns. Sherlock started to count.

He had gotten to twelve when John said, "You know it's not your fault, right?"

Sherlock scoffed, looking up without properly meeting John's eyes. "Isn't it?" he said. "I was the one who pointed it out – I told my mother, told everyone, about the affair. Mycroft has made it abundantly clear that that was my mistake, and that I should have kept my mouth shut."

"Whoever this Mycroft is sounds kind of like a moron."

"He's my brother," Sherlock clarifies, "and, unfortunately, he's not a moron. He's smarter than I am." A distasteful expression crossed his face. "I always thought I was slow, compared to him."

"Well, obviously, you're not slow," John said, "and obviously, Mycroft is still a moron. This is not your fault, Sherlock, no matter what Mycroft says. It's your father's, not yours."

"I should have kept quiet," Sherlock said, almost as though he had not heard John. "People are always telling me to keep quiet. People don't like my deductions."

"If your father didn't want you to point out that he was having an affair, he shouldn't have had an affair in the first place."

Sherlock dropped his gaze to the mosaic-like tiles again and fell silent for a moment. When he spoke again, his tone was quiet. "How do you know?" he asked.

"Pardon?"

"How do you know it's not my fault? You hardly even know me."

Sherlock did not look at John, but he could see John was trying to meet his gaze. Sherlock did not allow him to.

"Did you force your father to have an affair?" John asked after a moment.

Sherlock shook his head. "No."

"Then it's not your fault. It's as simple as that."

Sherlock glanced up at John only very briefly, and then he averted his gaze again. John was a stranger, a person who Sherlock had not had a conversation with before tonight, and this stranger was the only one who thought that Sherlock was not to blame. Mycroft thought Sherlock was to blame, because Mother would not have been upset if she had not known. His father had not said as much explicitly, but he had not said anything at all, not since Sherlock had made his deduction. It was unspoken, but the blame was there. And then there was his mother, who was crying. Sherlock's mother never cried, and yet Sherlock had seen tears spring to her eyes before she had excused herself, locked herself in the room and refused to come out. How was any of that not Sherlock's fault?

After a moment, John slowly stood from where he was sitting by the bathroom door. He approached Sherlock with the kind of hesitation that one might have if they were approaching a frightened animal, afraid it might skitter away if it was startled. He stepped over to Sherlock and then sat beside him on the edge of the bathtub, hesitating before placing a hand on Sherlock's shoulder. "It's not your fault," he said again, and Sherlock wondered if he was just repeating that over and over, to ensure that it sunk into Sherlock's head.

Normally, Sherlock would shrug off the hand and lean away on the touch. Normally, he would put on a cold, expressionless mask, and he would change topics, and that would be that. This time, however, Sherlock felt different. The situation itself was different, because normally, Sherlock would not have conversations like this to start off with. However, he had already had this conversation. Maybe it was the alcohol, forcing him to open up and making him feel different. Maybe that was all right.

Sherlock leaned into the touch and closed his eyes.

OoO

Sherlock did not know exactly how much time had passed, with the two of them sitting there in silence on the edge of the bathtub. John did not speak, or shift his weight, or do anything that gave Sherlock the indication that John had had enough and wanted to leave. Perhaps he was willing to give Sherlock as long as he needed. It did not make sense, why a perfect stranger would show so much kindness. No one else had ever treated Sherlock in this way. Sherlock did not think anyone would. He might not have had many friends, but he wasn't unheard of at the school. People would be surprised to know that the young man who sat in the bathroom and spilled his deepest secrets to a stranger because he was drunk was the same man that made thoughtless deductions that offended people and had set the chemistry lab on fire once or twice. No one would expect that Sherlock might, occasionally, need something like this.

Sherlock himself would not have expected to need something like this. He blamed the alcohol.

Eventually, Sherlock blinked himself back into reality, taking certain thoughts and locking them in a box in his Mind Palace, to be dealt with on a later occasion, when his judgement was not quite so impaired. He straightened up, and felt John's hand fall away from his shoulder as he did. Illogically, Sherlock felt as though he could still feel an imprint of John's hand on his skin.

"This is not like me," he said, as though he still had a reputation that he wanted to uphold.

"That's okay," John said. "We can blame the alcohol. I won't tell anyone, promise."

Sherlock had not feared that John would tell anyone, because that would be rather at odds with the character that John had shown himself to be over the last half hour, but the reassurance was nice nonetheless.

After a moment, John spoke. "You might wake up tomorrow morning and regret talking to me, and that's fine, but if you do need someone to talk to when you are sober, you can call me."

"Why would I need to call you?"

"No reason at all," John replied with a dismissive shrug of his shoulder. "But, if you want, I can give you my number."

Sherlock considered it for a moment, and then fished his phone out of his pocket and handed it to John. John did the same, handing his own phone over to Sherlock. Sherlock turned it over in his hands briefly.

Fascinating. Sister was an alcoholic. Perhaps that was the reason why John had stayed with Sherlock tonight.

Sherlock was not certain where that deduction came from. He had noticed something. Scratches on the phone, meaning his sister was an alcoholic. There was a deduction there. His brain would catch up eventually.

Getting drunk was not fun.

Sherlock put his number into John's contacts list, and then exchanged phones with John again. He could see John's name now sitting in his contact list. His chest felt a little bit lighter.

"Come on," John said after a moment, pocketing his phone and getting to his feet. He extended a hand to help Sherlock as well. "Let's go join the rest of the party. Can't stay in the bathroom all night. People might talk."

A ghost of a smile pulled up over Sherlock's lips. "People do little else."


	20. The Mad Therapist

**Author's Note:** I apologise for the delay in getting this to you. Adulting is hard. However, I've got the next one ready to go shortly and the one after that is just waiting on some beta-ing, so there shouldn't be such a long delay for at least the next couple.

As always, a million thanks to the beautiful Becca (Ao3's LlamaWithAPen) for her excellent beta-ing.

* * *

Prompt from user Cyrania de Bergerac: _Suppose Sherlock pretended to be a therapist to gather information and John became his client instead of Ella's?_

 **The Mad Therapist**

The Blog of Doctor John H. Watson  
2 April 2012

On the 29th of January, I started seeing a therapist by the name of Sherlock Holmes. At his suggestion, I started keeping a blog as a way of documenting our sessions and my recovery. I was doing so in the form of private entries up until this point, because I had no interest in sharing something so personal with the world. Besides, most of these entries were no more than a few lines long, because nothing interesting ever happened to me that I considered worth noting down.

This entry is not a private one, because this is a story I think people might want to hear. It might complement some of the newspaper articles that some of you will have read this week.

To begin, a bit of background. I was an army doctor, serving in Afghanistan. Late last year, I was shot in the shoulder and invalided home. Recovering from any injury is not easy, let alone an injury received in traumatic circumstances. The army knows this. So, when I was sent back to London, I was assigned a therapist. If this had not been enforced, I don't think I would have sought out a therapist myself. I've never been a fan of talking about my problems, especially not to people who I do not know. Looking back now, I can only imagine how different my life would have been had I never gone to therapy – and not for the reason you think.

Let me tell you a bit about my therapist, Sherlock Holmes. I've rewritten this paragraph several times – writing and deleting, writing again and deleting – trying to work out how I can describe him to you. There's something about Sherlock that is almost beyond words. For one thing, he is not at all what you might expect in a therapist. You think therapist, and you think of someone who sits across from you in a quiet room and coaxes answers out of you in a gentle manner, someone who encourages you to speak without pushing the subjects that you refuse to focus on. Sherlock Holmes is nothing like that. He's arrogant and rude, and probably a little bit mad. He did not have the patience that you would expect in a therapist. He wasn't willing to wait for you to speak when you're ready. As a matter of fact, he didn't need to; he did not need to wait for you to speak before he knew exactly why you were there.

See, Sherlock Holmes can read you like an open book. Maybe he's secretly psychic – I wouldn't put it past him. He knew things about me during our first therapy session even before I had spoken. I wasn't surprised when he brought up Afghanistan or my career as an army doctor – I figured he would have been given that information when our first session was organised. Yet he knew more than this. He looked at me and was able to tell things about my family background, things that happened long before Afghanistan, things that wouldn't have been written in any files. It was like everything about me was written into my skin, in the tan lines on my wrists or the creases on my forehead. He could also tell whenever I was lying, or holding things back. I don't claim to be a particularly good liar at the best of times, but Sherlock made it seem like he could see the truth behind even the most well-formulated lie.

Sitting in his office felt kind of like being dissected. Whatever secrets I carried with me, he would find ways to draw out. He'd either see them without asking me to speak, or he would find some way to control the conversation until I was forced to open up to him.

The way that I'm describing him makes him sound all bad, but that's not the case at all. There's a reason why I went back after the first therapy session, and why I kept coming back after that. There's something strangely likeable at him, despite his abruptness. He's charming, really. And he has a weird way of making you want to tell him things – perhaps because you know that he'll see it even if you don't say it anyway. He's the weirdest therapist in the world, but he was good at it. Which is strange, because he wasn't really a therapist.

(I'll get to that in a moment.)

To say that Sherlock Holmes' methods were unorthodox would be an understatement, and I'm not just talking about his ability to read your mind. When he was reading my mind – or "deducing" me, as he liked to call it – it was still like a traditional therapy session. We would sit across from each other and talk about heavy issues, like you would expect to do in therapy. However, not all of his therapy sessions were like this. Some of his sessions involved excursions away from his office. These sessions were easily the most bizarre, and also the best.

Take, for example, the first excursion, during the third week of therapy. The week prior, we had started talking about my recovery since I had come home from Afghanistan. (And when I say talk, I mean he had started to make deductions about my recovery.) I won't bore you with details, but what you need to know is that I had a tremor in my left hand – my dominant hand. He noticed it during the session while we were talking about the war, though he didn't say much about it. I had always assumed that it was associated with stress. My doctor had said as much, when he couldn't find a physical cause. It's probably stress, he said. Therapy will help. I didn't know any better.

Sherlock Holmes, however, knew better. I don't know how he knew, but he did. My tremor wasn't caused by stress and he proved it. When I arrived at the clinic for our third session, Sherlock was locking up. There was a cab waiting for us in the street, and Sherlock explained that we were having the session out of the clinic. Where were we going instead? A shooting range. Sherlock took me to a shooting range, put a gun in my hands, and gave me a target to fire at.

And it helped. I can't explain how, but it helped. The first few shots were shaky, but then Sherlock was talking to me, making me talk about the war, making me put myself back there in my head, and suddenly I was firing at the target and my hand was perfectly steady. I was almost right on target. Sherlock proved that anxiety or stress or PTSD was not the cause of my intermittent tremor. I didn't fear the war. I missed it. I know that mustn't make sense to anyone who hasn't been to war – and perhaps even to people who have – but for me, being an army doctor in Afghanistan gave me a sense of purpose I'd never had anywhere else. I was saving lives. I was making a difference. It wasn't the fear of the war that caused my tremor, but the fact that I was trying to acclimatise to London again, and that sense of purpose I had had in the war was gone.

That example isn't even the most remarkable thing that he did. He did far more than just diagnose the cause of my problems. When I first started going to therapy, I had a limp. My leg ached, and I had to walk with a cane. I'd never received any severe leg injury that should have caused that sort of limp, but I was sure that it had a physical cause. In one of our first therapy sessions, Sherlock had told me, among a list of deductions, that my limp was psychosomatic, but I didn't believe him. How could something that caused so much pain, something that was so debilitating in my life, be all in my head?

Sherlock, being Sherlock, found a way to prove that my limp was psychosomatic. We had another excursion therapy session, where he took me out for a walk. Of course, this didn't seem to do much at first except highlight how much I was struggling – he's got long legs and takes big steps, and I was struggling to keep up. Eventually, we stopped at a cafe for lunch. We didn't discuss my limp or anything – we got far off topic. He was getting me to focus on other things. I didn't realise at the time that he was distracting me, but I can see that now. Then, suddenly, he cut himself off mid-sentence, staring as though he had seen something outside the window, and he jumped up and ran. I didn't know what was going on, but I'd known that the look on his face had been one of panic, and I had jumped up and followed him. Chasing after him was the only thing that made sense. I didn't realise that I'd left my cane behind. With the adrenaline, with my focus on keeping up with Sherlock, my brain just seemed to forget that I had been limping for months. It sounds ridiculous, I know, that I could have forgotten about something so debilitating, but it worked. I ran, without limping, and I don't think I even realised I wasn't limping until I caught up with Sherlock and he pointed it out. He hadn't seen anything out the window; he had just wanted to get me running, and it had worked. I haven't needed my cane since.

The point I'm trying to make is that Sherlock is the most bizarre therapist that I could have possibly been assigned to, and at the same time, he was the best therapist in the world. Maybe his methods wouldn't work for everyone – in fact, given his somewhat abrasive personality, I'm certain his methods wouldn't work for everyone – but it worked for me. The more time I spent with him, the more I found myself trusting him, and the more willing I was to open up and talk to him. I've never found it easy to talk about any heavy issues. The fact that I could do so with Sherlock is a big deal.

Then one day, I reached his office and found that he wasn't there.

I hadn't received any calls or emails to tell me that our appointment had been cancelled or rescheduled. I waited outside his office for a good half hour in case he was running late, but he didn't turn up. It wasn't like him to be late. I assumed that he was sick, and perhaps he just hadn't been feeling well enough to remember to call me and cancel the appointment. Things like this happen sometimes. I decided I'd go home and I'd call the next day to reschedule our appointment.

Unfortunately, the only number of Sherlock's that I had was his office number, so, if he was too sick to come into the office, I had no way of contacting him. When I called his office the next day, I got no answer. I tried both in the morning and in the afternoon and had no luck getting onto him. I admit I was a little worried – it had only been a couple of days without word from him, but it seemed odd that he couldn't find the time to just shoot me a quick email. I wanted to get in touch and make sure he was all right. I went looking for an alternate contact number, and found the number for the clinic that he worked for. I assumed that if I called that number, someone would be able to either give me a contact number or contact him themselves to check in on him.

So, I called the clinic, and was told that they did not have anyone by the name of Sherlock Holmes working for them.

This was the point when I started to worry.

I asked the woman on the phone to check the information again, twice, because I had definitely seen a man by the name of Sherlock Holmes. Yet, there was no Sherlock Holmes in their system. There was no Sherlock Holmes working for them, and there never had been.

Naturally, the next person I decided to contact was the doctor who had originally referred me to this clinic. Surely he would know about the Sherlock Holmes that I had been seeing for the past couple of months. Surely he would be able to give me some answers. When I contacted him, however, I was told that he had not heard of Sherlock Holmes either. In fact, he had thought that I would be attending therapy sessions with a woman named Ella.

You can imagine the amount of stress that this led to. I didn't know what to think. The idea that I had been seeing a therapist who wasn't really a therapist – or, at least, who wasn't supposed to be my therapist – terrified me. I couldn't make sense of it and I didn't know what was going on. It terrified me to think that I had been opening up to someone, starting to trust someone, who I should not have trusted at all. As you can imagine, I did not get very much sleep that night.

It was during that night that I had the bright idea to look Sherlock Holmes up on the internet. Some of you will laugh at that – maybe you would have come up with this clever idea long before I did. I'm sure, for some of you, looking people up on the internet is second nature, because so much of our lives nowadays are spent online. However, I haven't grown up completely surrounded by technology. Aside from this blog, I've never used a great deal of social media. That, and before this discovery, I had no reason to look my therapist up on the internet, either.

Anyway. So I looked up the name Sherlock Holmes, and, unsurprisingly, I could not find any information about a therapist with that name. What I did find was a website, titled The Science of Deduction. The website was written by a man named Sherlock Holmes – not a therapist, but a detective.

I can't think of a scarier job description to have been read. I'm not a criminal, and I have nothing to hide, but that does not mean I was comfortable with the idea that I had been opening up to a detective. It sickened me to discover that the person I was starting to trust had been wearing a mask all along, pretending to be someone I could speak openly with to get information out of me. I'm still not sure if what he did was legal – it probably wasn't – but I couldn't go back in time and take back what I had said to him. I didn't know who to turn to, who to talk to. I couldn't go to the police, because I wasn't sure if he was working with the police, and if going to talk to them would just put me in more trouble. I didn't know who else to talk to.

There were a number of contact details on the man's website – phone number, address, email. The next morning, I decided that I had to contact him somehow, because I had to know for sure who he was and what he had been doing. How could I go back to living my life normally after finding out that my therapist had actually been a detective? There were too many questions. I called the number on the website, and I think a part of me was hoping that it wouldn't really be him, that this detective would not be the same Sherlock Holmes that I had been seeing. It was wishful thinking – too wishful, of course. He didn't pick up, but the message on his answering machine confirmed my fears. He has a very distinct voice. There was no doubting that the phone number belonged to him.

The fact that he had not picked up the phone did not make me give up. If anything, it made me more determined to find him, to get answers out of him. I didn't want to bother with his email address – I didn't see the point in waiting around for what could be weeks before I got a response to an email. I didn't want to read an explanation; I wanted to hear it, preferably in person. Later that morning, when I decided it was a respectable hour, I went to the address on the website. Sitting in the cab on the way there, I knew this could be dangerous. I knew that there was every possibility that this was the wrong thing to do, that this would just get me into more trouble. I didn't care. I needed answers. I was desperate.

Sherlock wasn't there, when I reached his flat. The person who opened the door was a lovely woman – his landlady. And with her was a man by the name of Detective Inspector Lestrade. As it turned out, Sherlock Holmes had not been seen or heard from in over two days – since the day that should have been my therapy session.

The fact that I was an unfamiliar face who was looking for Sherlock Holmes made the Detective Inspector eager to talk to me. I was more than willing to answer honestly – I knew it was my best chance of getting the answers I wanted, and I knew that I, myself, had done nothing wrong. I told them how I had met Sherlock, how I had been seeing him as a therapist for the past month or two. This was news to them. Apparently, Detective Inspector Lestrade knew of the case that Sherlock had been working on, but he had not known that Sherlock was pretending to be a therapist to investigate it. I gather Sherlock has a tendency to go off on his own and do things his own way. It did not surprise me to learn that his ways of investigating a case were as unorthodox as his therapy sessions.

I told Lestrade everything I could – which wasn't very much, but I hoped that the information about the therapy sessions and the clinic would help. Lestrade seemed to find it interesting, at least. He asked me where the clinic was, and then we were heading there. I don't know if he let me come with him because he hoped I could help, or if it was just because I insisted on it. Perhaps it was a combination of both.

So, we went to the clinic, and the receptionist let us into the office as soon as she saw Lestrade's badge. I remember wondering who the receptionist really was – if Sherlock had not been who he claimed to be, was the receptionist also someone else? Or perhaps, like me, she had been fooled by Sherlock's mask, believing that there was nothing unusual about the clinic in which she worked.

Sherlock's office did not look any different from the last time I was in there. It had not been cleared out – his belongings were still on the desk and on the shelves. This made me more worried that something had happened to Sherlock. If he had left of his own accord, I would have thought that he would take his things with him. Yet, all his things were still there – including the little black book that he had been using to take notes during our meetings. It was still in the drawer where I knew he kept it. I found it and gave it to Lestrade.

I had not thought much of the book that Sherlock wrote in before now. During our first meeting I found myself watching his pen scrape over the paper, and I was able to read his writing upside down. He caught me doing so, and after that he took to positioning his hand in such a way as to block my view. I hadn't thought anything of it. With the fact that so many of our sessions after that were spent out of his office, I didn't see him writing in the book all the time anyway. It turned out that he had still been taking notes while we had our excursion sessions, though, so he must have been filling out the book after his sessions were over.

I wasn't Sherlock's only client. The notebook contained pages and pages of scribbles and notes on various other clients. Naturally, my curiosity got the better of me, and I flipped through the pages that he had written on me. I think, if I had seen his notes earlier, I might have had my suspicions before now. His notes weren't the sort of thing you would expect from a therapist. It seemed more like he was profiling me. He had made notes not just on my mental wellbeing or my recovery, like you'd expect a therapist to do, but he had also made notes on things, like how good a shot I was at the shooting range, or how fast I ran.

I wasn't the only one he had been profiling, too. I think he had been profiling everyone. I did not spend too long reading through any pages other than my own – even that felt like too much of an invasion of privacy – but I did accidentally turn to the page that came immediately after mine. Right at the bottom of the page, Sherlock had written the word 'SUSPECT' and circled it.

Lestrade took the notebook as evidence, and gave me his number. He told me to contact him if I heard from Sherlock, or if I thought of anything that might help. Then he dropped me home.

I know I'm no policeman. I know, in the grand scheme of things, I'm not even that important. I was hardly someone who knew Sherlock well, or would have anything to offer that might help Lestrade and his men find out where Sherlock had gone. Yet, I suppose it was only to be expected that I wanted to be involved in this. A part of me was still furious, because I had opened up to Sherlock, not realising that he was manipulating me. At the same time, the fact was still that Sherlock Holmes had helped me. He had cured my limp and given me a safe space to talk about things that were going on in my head, and he might have saved my life. I didn't want anything to have happened to him.

I couldn't focus on anything else when I got home that afternoon. I tried watching telly, but my mind kept wandering to Sherlock, to the list of things that could have happened to him. I couldn't relax or take my mind off him, not when there was a real possibility that he was hurt. I could hardly try to live a normal life with that constantly playing at the back of my mind.

I found myself back on his website – The Science of Deduction – even before I had made the decision to open it. I did not expect to find anything helpful on there, but I found myself looking at the contact details on the page. There was probably no good to come from calling him, but there was no harm in trying. More than likely, I would not get a response, and I would have wasted a moment of my day. But, if there was a small possibility that he would pick up, surely it was worth a try. It seemed slightly more productive than sitting on be sofa and feeling hopeless.

He picked up.

The sounds I heard on the other end of the line were muffled. It was impossible to make out words. I could hear Sherlock's voice, and another voice that I did not recognise – and it did not sound like they were getting on. It sounded as though there was a struggle. It confirmed everyone's worst fear – something really had happened to Sherlock.

Right before the call disconnected, I heard Sherlock say one word. _Redbeard_. Then the call cut out.

The first thing I did was call Lestrade to explain to him what had just happened. It was impossible to ignore the gravity of the situation now. I gave him all the information I could, including that I had heard the word Redbeard, even though it had meant nothing to me at the time. Was Redbeard the name (or nickname, more likely) of the other person on the phone? Or a company or group with which that person was associated? I searched for it online after Lestrade had hung up, but I could not find anything useful. I could only hope that the resources that Lestrade had would reveal more than a simple web search could.

As it turned out, however, all of Scotland Yard's finest resources weren't even necessary – not at that point, anyway.

I can't say where the idea came from. I don't know if it was something I saw on the telly, or a flash of text on the webpage that was still open on my laptop, but the word Redbeard kept playing around in my head, and I found myself thinking, what if it wasn't a name at all? What if Sherlock had not been trying to give us the name of his abductor, but instead had been trying to say something else entirely. I wondered if it was some sort of secret message, or code. Then I wondered if it was a passcode.

One of Sherlock's quirks as a therapist was that I did not always have his full attention. His phone sat on his desk at all times – occasionally he would pick it up and respond to a message, or check something online. It had bothered me at first, but after that, Sherlock's sessions had started to really make a difference to my life, so I didn't care if he checked his phone from time to time. If he was doing things like curing my limp, he could do just about whatever he wanted. Anyway, because he kept his phone on his desk and fiddled with it so much, I knew he had a smartphone. And his smartphone, like most smartphones nowadays, had GPS.

I found the website for his phone brand, which included a "Find my Phone" link. The username was Sherlock's email address – that was on the website – and the password: redbeard.

It worked. The page loaded, and within three minutes there was a map reference on screen, a blinking dot showing where Sherlock was – or, at least, where his phone was. There was no guarantee that the map would lead to Sherlock. He had had his phone before, when he had answered my call, but he might not have it now. He could have left his phone behind – or been forced to leave his phone behind – and could be long gone by now. However, it was a lead, and at this point, it was the best lead we had.

I called Lestrade at the same time I was rushing out the door. I was unwilling to sit around and do nothing while I waited for him to pick up. I wanted to get to the place where the blinking dot had been on the map. When Lestrade answered, it's a miracle he managed to understand just about anything I said on the phone, I was that frantic. I told him about the password, and the map reference, and he told me he was on his way.

The map reference took us to an abandoned warehouse – boarded up windows, walls that were falling apart. There were two different buildings, and the map reference could not give me any information as specific as which building Sherlock – or his phone – was in, but at least this was a start.

It turns out that Sherlock was in there, not just his phone. He was able to fill in the blanks for me afterwards.

Basically, Sherlock had been investigating a series of murders. He had worked out from examining the crime scenes that the murderer had a military background, and had likely only recently returned to London. That was why he decided to pose as a therapist. There was no guarantee that the murderer would even become one of his clients, but he seemed to believe that he chances were good enough to make it worth a try. And it had worked, in a sense. The murderer had indeed been one of Sherlock's clients. Unfortunately, what Sherlock had not realised was that the murderer also knew who he was. Which meant that in every session, when Sherlock was trying to get information out of him, trying to work out if he really was their guilty suspect, the murderer was one step ahead. Every answer he gave was carefully planned, so he only gave away as much as he wanted – enough for Sherlock to think that he was putting pieces of the puzzle together, without putting himself in any real danger of being caught. The murderer had fooled Sherlock into believing he was solving the case, lulling him into a false sense of security, leading him into a trap.

The day of the appointment that Sherlock had missed – the start of this whole mess – Sherlock had gone to the clinic to meet me for my appointment. The murderer, however, had been waiting for him.

Sherlock could not tell me much about the few days in between the appointment-that-never-happened and the day we found him, because he was so heavily drugged for the duration of it. The amount that Sherlock had said he had been dosed with - I'm surprised he had survived it at all. I guess he must have a high tolerance.

We'll never know what the murderer's motives were. Maybe wanted to hold Sherlock hostage, for money or for his freedom or for something else entirely. Maybe he wanted to kill Sherlock like he had all his other victims, and just wanted to draw it out first, to make Sherlock suffer. When the police and I reached the warehouse, the murderer was ready to kill, ready to fire a bullet into Sherlock's head. He might have only been seconds away from pulling the trigger – then someone else shot him through one of the windows, killing the murderer and saving Sherlock's life in the process. Apparently, that shooter wasn't with the police. He or she must have run off before the police could find them, but I suppose someone like the murderer was bound to have enemies. Whoever they were, they saved Sherlock's life.

Sherlock's okay, miraculously. He was in a pretty bad way when the police reached him – a combination of the drugs and the fact that he would have had limited food and drink for two days. He was taken to hospital, and the doctors and nurses had a tough time keeping him there. Rumour has it he made two attempts at escaping through the open window. He was discharged at the earliest opportunity, and I don't know who would have been happier to get him out of there: Sherlock himself or his nurses.

And now – well, now, I've moved in with him. It just sort of happened. I would not have expected to be living with a madman like Sherlock Holmes two months ago, but I suppose, two months ago, I wouldn't have expected to find out that my therapist was actually a madman detective.

Best sort of therapist in the world, if you ask me.


	21. The Mad Man in the Morgue

**Author's Note:** First of all, I'm thrilled that I've actually had enough prompts to get over 20 stories. That's certainly more than I expected and I appreciate all of you. Second, I just wanted to give you a quick update - after this particular fic, I have five prompts left. I'm happy to keep this fic going indefinitely, as long as I get enough prompts to continue it, so if you want this fic to continue, please keep sending them in!

And third, thank you to the most amazing beta in the world, Becca (Ao3's LlamaWithAPen) for being an all-round awesome human being.

* * *

Prompt from guest "Lydia": _John's an (army) doctor at st.b bart[sic] hospital and sherlocks[sic] still a consulting detrctive[sic.. They never met[sic] When John is brought in to examine the body, sherlock[sic] is there as well because he couldnt[sic] make it to the crime scene..._

 **The Mad Man in the Morgue**

 _One_.

There are three things about St Bart's Hospital that John learns within his first month of working there.

First, the best coffee within walking distance of St Bart's is at a cafe about five minutes away. This is common knowledge among the hospital staff and the medical students, and as medical students are capable of consuming an insane amount of coffee, it is very dangerous to visit said cafe between the hours of 8:30 and 9:30 in the morning (unless you are willing to stand in a long queue of tired-looking medical students).

Second, there are certain foods in the cafeteria that should not be consumed prior to working in the morgue. The fact that John has seen gruesome injuries while serving as an army doctor in Afghanistan does not mean he has a strong stomach.

And third, if Molly Hooper, the pathologist who works down in the morgue looks red and flustered, it means that the police – and, more correctly, one particular individual who works with the police but is not a policeman himself – are examining a body.

John learns the third fact late one Tuesday afternoon, shortly before his shift ends and he is to go home for the day. He is helping Mike Stamford, one of the teachers, pack up, and it is by sheer chance that Mike sends him to return some equipment to the morgue at the same time that the police are there.

He pushes open the door with his shoulder, arms full of equipment. The sound of the door grabs the attention of three of the four people in the room. The first is Molly Hooper, the aforementioned pathologist. The second is a silvery-haired gentleman, who is clearly a police officer (as indicated by the shiny badge on his belt). The third is another unfamiliar man, with dark hair and bright eyes. If he is also a police officer, his shiny badge must be hidden by his long coat.

(The fourth person, whose attention John does not grab, is dead.)

"Sorry," John apologises quickly, gesturing with his chin to the equipment that he is carrying. "I just wanted to return this. I didn't mean to interrupt."

The dark-haired man – the one without a visible police badge – looks John up and down briefly before turning back to the body on the table. He is in the process of examining the corpse's feet with a small, pocket-sized magnifying glass. "Bit of an unusual career progression, isn't it?" he asks as he peers through the magnifying glass. "From an army doctor to a lab technician?"

John frowns, pausing mid-step to the table where he is to return the equipment. "How did you know I was..." he starts, but he doesn't get the chance to finish his sentence.

"You're going to want to visit the gallery. Find out who forged the Lost Vermeer painting."

The silvery-haired man starts, visibly surprised by the statement, and he takes a step back. "What? What's that got to do with our John Doe?" He gestures to the man on the table.

As he speaks, the dark-haired man is pulling his phone out of his pocket, fingers flying over the keyboard. "Our John Doe," he says, "is Alex Woodbridge. The Hickman Gallery reported him missing this morning."

"What?" says the silvery-haired man. "How do you know?"

The dark-haired man rolls his eyes. "As ever, Lestrade, the intelligence of Scotland Yard's finest astounds me." He gestures to the man on the table, and then to what John assumes is the man's clothing and any other belongings he had on his person when his body was discovered. "Uniform, belt, varicose veins – it's obvious he's a security guard. Ticket stubs in his pockets tell us that he worked in a museum or a gallery, and the Hickman Gallery reported one of their attendants missing this morning. Hardly a difficult leap."

"And what's that got to do with the painting?"

For a moment, the dark-haired man stares at the one he had called Lestrade with an expression of incredulity on his face. "Dear God," he says slowly. "What is it like in your head? It must be so boring."

Lestrade lets out a sigh. "Just explain it," he says tersely.

The other man gestures again to the body. "This wasn't a crime of passion, certainly not a spur of the moment attack. Look at the bruising pattern – Woodbridge was strangled to death by someone very large and very strong. Have you ever heard of the Golem?"

"The what?"

"It's the name of an assassin. Based off a Jewish folk story – a giant man made out of clay. The assassin kills people by quite literally squeezing the life out of them. This," – he gestures to the body – "is his signature style. Now, why would someone hire an assassin to kill a security guard from an art gallery? Well, it's obvious, isn't it? The Lost Vermeer painting is being unveiled tonight. Woodbridge must have known something about the painting, something that would destroy the unveiling, that would stop the owner from getting paid thirty million pounds. Obvious. The painting's a fake."

These words tumbled out of the man's mouth quickly, with barely a pause for breath in between. When the man finally stops talking, the only thing that follows is a moment of awe-struck silence. John thinks he might be gaping. John knows he is not the only one gaping.

"Bloody hell," Lestrade says after a pause.

The other man simply rolls his eyes. "Come on," he says. "Let's go pay the gallery a visit."

Then he's turning, heading out the door, with Lestrade hot on his heels. He barely glances at John or Molly as he passes. It's only when the door swings shut behind him that John notices the pile of equipment that is still in his arms and remembers why he had come down here in the first place.

He turns to Molly, a question on his lips about what had just happened, what he had just seen and who in the world that strange man had been. However, when he turns, he finds Molly is gazing at the door out of which the two men had just exited. Her cheeks are pink and there is an unmistakable expression of longing on her face. John feels like he is intruding even just to draw her attention away from her current thoughts. Instead, he pretends not to see. He puts the equipment away and disappears from the room.

 _Two_.

The second time John encounters the strange, dark-haired madman is a couple of weeks later. This meeting is not quite as remarkable, but at least it answers quite a few questions.

It is lunch time, and John is heading up to find Mike Stamford in one of the teaching labs. They had agreed to take lunch together when they both took a break. When he pushes open the door to the lab, he almost walks straight into the dark-haired man from two weeks ago. He stumbles backwards with an apology, but the man does not seem to have noticed John at all.

"If that explodes, text me," the dark-haired man is saying – not to John, but to Mike, who is still sitting in the lab.

"If it explodes," says Mike, "and makes a mess of my lab, I'm going to be doing more than just texting you."

The man's lips twitch slightly – it might be a ghost of a smile, or maybe just a facial spasm. Without another word, he turns – seemingly only then noticing that John is standing in the doorway – and he looks John over briefly before stepping past him and into the hall. Despite their interaction consisting of absolutely no words, John feels like the man, in that split second of eye contact, saw straight through John, straight into John's mind. John isn't sure what to think about that. He shakes his head to dismiss the thought from his mind.

"Ready?" Mike asks, breaking through John's thought process, and he turns away from the now-empty hall to face his friend. He nods his head, holding open the door so Mike can fall into step beside him.

"Hey, who was that guy?" John asks as they walk down the hall. "I saw him in the morgue the other day."

"Sherlock Holmes," Mike replies, and then a knowing smile comes across his face. "Why? Did he take one look at you and tell you your whole life story?"

It's not exactly correct – he had known that John had gone from an army doctor to a lab technician, but he hadn't known any more than that. At least, he had not said any more than that. However, John saw the kinds of details he was able to get from the body at the morgue and the few belongings that had been on his person when his body had been found. John got the impression that, if this man had wanted to, he probably could have told John's entire life story just as easily. "Something like that," he says to Mike.

"He does that," Mike says. "He's very good at reading people. Scarily good, actually." A beat, and then Mike adds, "He also has an unfortunate tendency of telling people exactly what he thinks when he looks at them. He doesn't know when to stop talking."

"Who _is_ he?" John asks. "Is he a detective?"

"Yes and no. He's not _technically_ a detective, but he works as one. Works with Scotland Yard, but only when he wants to. Only when he finds a case that is particularly interesting."

"And the police just let him do that? Pick and choose between cases?"

"Of course. With talents like his, why would anyone say no to him?"

John hums in understanding, even though he's not sure he really understands at all. After a moment, he asks, "He uses the labs here too?"

"From time to time," Mike says. "He's convinced he's faster than Scotland Yard's forensic team, so he's always taking samples to analyse here. I'd think his ego was too big if I haven't seen how quickly he works. Sometimes he just does experiments here too. He swears that it's all in the name of science and crime solving, but I think he does it just for fun. Kind of like a child with a volcano made out of baking soda and vinegar, just a bit more dangerous."

"He said it might explode."

Mike chuckles. "Don't worry. That's only actually happened twice before."

 _Three_.

John pushes open the door to the morgue.

The man who he now knows is named Sherlock Holmes is there, already inside. He is beating a corpse with a riding crop.

John turns around and exits the morgue.

 _Four_.

When John gets out of the cab late Thursday morning, he realises he can see a figure on the roof of St Bart's. He cannot make out who it is, but it seems that there is someone sitting on the ledge. It is not a sight that John is willing to just ignore. He would much rather go up there and see if everything is okay.

He climbs the stairs and pushes the door to the roof open. It's one of London's rarer clear days, cool but not freezing. He realises once he is on the roof that the figure on the ledge is Sherlock Holmes; he can recognise the familiar silhouette even from behind. Tendrils of smoke curl through the air as he exhales, and John sees a cigarette in his hand.

John does not slam the door shut behind him, not wanting to take Sherlock by surprise and cause him to start while he is in such a precarious position. However, he does close the door with enough sound to make Sherlock aware of the fact that he is not alone up there. Only once the door is shut does John speak.

"You're not thinking of jumping, are you?" he asks, tone casual but with an underlying hint of concern.

Sherlock does not look over his shoulder, but he inclines his head in acknowledgement of the fact that John has spoken. He takes a long drag of his cigarette and puffs out a cloud of smoke before he replies. "Mmm, no," he says. "A fall from this height has a chance of survival – slim, but there. If I survived, I'd have irreparable brain damage. Far too much to risk. Not the way I'd choose to go."

John doesn't know if that statement is supposed to be reassuring or not. He hesitates, and then slowly walks towards where Sherlock is sitting on the edge of the roof. "So what are you doing up here?" he asks.

Sherlock holds up his cigarette. "Smoking."

"I can see that," John says, "but... why?"

"Can't do it downstairs," Sherlock explains dismissively. "One of those law things."

John goes to further clarify his question, before realising that the evasive answers are probably not because Sherlock does not understand what John is asking, but more likely because Sherlock is avoiding answering for his own reasons. John has no right to push him. This is the first proper conversation they have had, if you exclude the comment Sherlock made on their first meeting, about John's military history. Whatever is going on in Sherlock's head, or whatever his motivation for coming up to smoke on the roof is, John has no right to know.

He comes to a stop a few steps away from the ledge, keeping his distance. Sherlock glances over his shoulder.

"You're welcome to join me if you're so inclined," he says.

John shakes his head. "No, thanks. I'd rather not come too close to the edge."

"Afraid of heights?"

"Of heights? No. Of falling to my death, maybe. This is just... self-preservation."

Sherlock lets out a slight laugh, exhaling another mouthful of smoke as he does. "Interesting," he says.

"What is?"

"You are. You choose not to come too close to the edge of the roof, despite the fact that you're unlikely to actually fall off unless you behave in a particularly reckless manner, and yet you made a living, quite literally, on the battlefield."

"That's different," John says.

"Is it?"

"Yes." After a beat, John asks, "How did you know that, anyway? That I was an army doctor?"

Sherlock makes a dismissive hand gesture. "Hardly complicated, is it? Tan line says you've been abroad for work and not for vacation, stance and haircut say military, and the fact that you're now working at St Bart's says that you have a medical background."

"And you got all of that from one look?"

"Obviously."

"Wow," John says, letting out a breath. "That's amazing."

Sherlock does not turn around. For a moment, he is quiet, and then he says, "Most people just tell me to piss off."

John smiles. "Well. Guess I'm not most people, then."

Sherlock turns his head, looking at John out of the corner of his eye. "No. I suppose not."

He turns back to face the view from the rooftop – which is not a particularly nice view, John thinks, but each to his own – and he exhales another cloud of smoke. Then, he presses his cigarette to the rooftop to put it out before getting to his feet. John feels himself relax a small amount once Sherlock is no longer standing so close to the edge. He had not realised that he was tense.

"Come on, Doctor," Sherlock says, stepping past John and heading for the door. "Can't spend too long up here. People might start to wonder what we're up to."

John lets Sherlock lead the way down the stairs.

 _Five_.

John pushes open the door to the lab, on his way to retrieve a microscope for Mike. Sherlock is in that lab, performing his version of a school science experiment (that is, performing a more complicated, more dangerous version of a school science experiment). All three of the microscopes in the lab are in use – and Sherlock is the only one in the room to be using them.

"Do you really need all three?" John asks with a slight smile, leaning against the door.

Sherlock looks up, peering at him over the eyepiece before looking at his row of microscopes in consideration. After a long pause, he says, "I suppose I could let you have one."

John snorts. "How kind of you," he says. He is fairly certain the sarcasm in that sentence goes straight over Sherlock's head.

He stands to the side, waiting as Sherlock gets to his feet and begins to take the slide out from underneath one of the microscopes so that John can take it. However, before Sherlock finishes, the door behind John is pushed open. John quickly steps out of the way to avoid getting hit by the door, and he looks over his shoulder at the newcomer. He recognises the gentleman at the door as the policeman who had been with Sherlock the first time that John had ever seen him.

John does not remember the name of the gentleman at the door, but fortunately, Sherlock unknowingly fills in the blank for him.

"Ah, Lestrade," Sherlock says. "What a surprise."

(John notes that he does not sound all that surprised.)

The man named Lestrade crosses his arms over his chest, his body language reminding John of a father scolding a child. "Just so we're clear," he says, "this does not mean that I agree with your methods, and it does not mean that you are allowed to run off on your own again like last time."

"My methods," Sherlock says, "are precisely what caught you a murderer."

"Your methods are what very nearly led to you being murdered yourself."

Sherlock scoffs. "Please. The bullet didn't even touch me."

"Only just!" Lestrade replies with a little more agitation, and then he takes a breath, visibly composing himself. "You can't keep doing things like that. You're going to get killed." At this, Sherlock rolls his eyes and looks as though he is about to argue, but Lestrade cuts him off. "No, you will," he insists. "And if I had any other option, I'd be kicking you off any cases for the foreseeable future."

"But you have no other option," Sherlock says. "You need me."

Lestrade takes a breath, and then his shoulders sag in defeat and resignation. "Yes, I do," he says. "God help me." He takes a moment, and then straightens up. "Lauriston Gardens. Will you come?"

"Serial suicides?" Sherlock says, and his face breaks into a grin, like a child in a candy store. "Wouldn't miss it for the world."

"How can you have serial suicides?" John asks from the side of the room. It's the first time he has spoken, and Lestrade looks like he has only just noticed that John is there.

Sherlock turns to him, grinning. "Precisely what I want to find out," he says, and then he turns back to Lestrade. "I'm not coming in a police car. I'll be right behind."

Lestrade nods his head. "Thank you," he mutters, and then he turns to leave the room. Sherlock quickly pushes the equipment on the bench out of the way before going to follow.

"Help yourself to whichever microscope you please," he says as he passes John and pushes open the door. However, before he steps outside, he mutters to himself, "On second thoughts..." Then, quick as a flash, he grabs the umbrella that was leaning against the door, turning around and throwing it at John in the same movement. It takes John by surprise, but not enough so to stop him from catching it in mid-air.

"What—?" he starts, but Sherlock is grinning at him.

"Excellent reflexes," he says. "Come along. You'll be a great help."

"Help with what?" John asks, bewildered.

"Investigating a murder."

"Why on earth do you want me to help investigate a murder? I'm not a detective."

Sherlock sighs, but there seems to be an expression of amusement playing on the corners of his lips. "No, you're an army doctor of moderate intelligence, who has seen more than a lifetime's worth of gruesome injuries and violent deaths, and who is clearly still seeking the same sense of purpose and the same rush of adrenaline that came with saving people's lives. Now, would you like to come catch a murderer with me, or would you rather stay here and re-arrange lab equipment?"

John stares at Sherlock for a moment, but he knows long before he's spoken that he has already made up his mind. He does not even need to speak to confirm it; Sherlock seems to know the answer anyway.

"Excellent," Sherlock says, as though reading John's answer in his mind, and then he holds open the door for John to follow him out. "Come along," he says.

John does. He follows the mad man who he met at the morgue, the man who examines bodies and solves crimes (but only when they're interesting), who smokes on rooftop ledges and sometimes beats corpses with riding crops. John falls into step beside him as they walk down the hall and out the door, and he feels like he's exactly where he is supposed to be.


	22. Chemical Imbalance

**Author's Note:** This one was difficult to write. A lot of fun, definitely, but difficult all the same. I love a love story as much as the next girl, but writing romance has never been a talent of mine. Nonetheless, I tried - and you can probably tell from the word count that this one got away from me a bit and turned into far, far more than a first meeting. I hope you like it!

Thank you to Becca (Ao3's LlamaWithAPen) for beta-ing, helping me come up with a title, and being an all-round awesome human being.

* * *

Prompt from user Skystorm14113, who requested something "a little more Johnlock-y".

 **Chemical Imbalance**

It starts in a chemistry class.

Technically speaking, fifteen-year-old Sherlock Holmes is not supposed to be in this class, in terms of his age. The class is made up of a mix of students in their last couple of years of high school, seventeen or eighteen years old. Sherlock is the youngest. Sherlock is also the smartest in the class – which is, of course, the very reason why he is in this class at all.

It had taken Sherlock's teachers a while to realise that he needed to be moved into a more advanced class. The issue was that when Sherlock first started high school, he was not excelling at his class work in the way that a particularly gifted student should have been. In fact, he was failing, simply because he was refusing to put in the effort, oftentimes not even submitting assignments. It made him look stupid to his teachers, who took a while to realise that Sherlock's grades and his intelligence did not line up. At first, they tried to give him easier work, treating him like he was one of the slower students who needed a little extra help to learn, but this did not improve his grades. It was only when one of the teachers caught Sherlock in one of the science labs during his lunch hour, conducting an experiment for his own enjoyment that was far more complicated than anything that they had covered in class – and, importantly, far more complicated for someone who was not intelligent – that they realised what was really happening.

After this, the teacher started giving Sherlock more complex work, and suddenly, his grades skyrocketed. Now that he was being given something more challenging, more interesting, he was much more willing to apply himself and actually put in effort. The more interesting he found the work, the better he would do. This was also beneficial to Sherlock's teachers and his peers, because a more engaged Sherlock was a significantly less disruptive Sherlock, which made the classes more bearable for everyone involved.

So, now that Sherlock is in Year 10, his teachers have decided that, rather being in a class with his peers, Sherlock can be in the more advanced class with the senior students. Immediately, it becomes Sherlock's favourite class. The work is primarily self-directed – they get to design their own projects and run their own experiments, making it as challenging as they like – and the work that they are given directly is all work that Sherlock finds interesting.

Sherlock loves the class up until they are told that their major project for the semester is to be done in pairs.

Sherlock pulls his professor aside the day that they are given this project, as the other students are beginning to pack up their belongings and make their way out of the room.

"I'd like to do the project on my own," Sherlock says.

His professor looks up at him over the tops of his glasses. "There's an even number of students in the class, including you," he says. "You should have no problems finding someone to work with."

The number of students in the class had not been Sherlock's concern. He clarifies, "I work better on my own." After a moment's thought, he adds, "I'm in this class so that I can challenge myself. Let me challenge myself by completing the project on my own."

The professor shakes his head, though there's a little smile playing on his lips. "You're also in this class because you're clever. We know that you're intelligent enough to complete the assignment on your own. I think it would be more of a challenge if you had to work with someone else."

"But—"

"I'm sorry, Sherlock," his professor says, cutting off Sherlock's next argument before he has even had the chance to make it. "If you're going to be in this class, you're going to do exactly the same sort of work as everyone else, which includes doing this assignment in pairs. Now, you can either find yourself a partner, or I will assign you one."

"Oh God," mutters someone behind Sherlock. "Don't let me be assigned with the freak."

Sherlock pretends not to notice. His focus is instead on trying to come up with an even better, even more convincing argument that will get him out of working on this project with someone else.

Before he has the chance to develop such an argument, however, another voice says, "I'll work with you, if you want."

Sherlock turns to the source of the voice: a blond boy whose name Sherlock does not know. Sherlock recognises him as one of the boys who sit in the front of the class, but Sherlock has never interacted with him before. Sherlock has had no need to collect unimportant data on this boy, including his name.

"See, Sherlock?" his professor says, gesturing to the boy. "That wasn't so difficult, was it?"

Sherlock chooses not to point out that his professor is completely missing the point.

The boy tilts his head to the side, an expectant look on his face, but when Sherlock does not speak, he says, "Why don't you meet me in the library at lunch? We can talk through our ideas for the project, and then you can decide if you want to work with me or if you'd rather work with someone else."

Sherlock does not want to work with anyone else, but he also does not want to work with this boy. He does not want to work with _anyone_ – why is this not obvious to the people around him? Why is this not clear to his professor, in particular? However, his professor is watching him like a hawk, perhaps trying to determine whether this short conversation is the start of a partnership between Sherlock and this boy, or if they are about to have a disagreement. Sherlock has no interest in continuing this conversation in front of their professor, especially when he knows that his professor will be displeased if Sherlock says what he really thinks about partnering with this boy (or anyone) on this project.

So, instead, Sherlock says, "Fine. I'll meet you in the library."

Then he turns and heads out the door before the boy can respond.

OoO

Sherlock sticks to his word. Come lunch time, he makes his way to the library, just as planned. The boy is already there when Sherlock arrives, sitting at one of the tables. He raises his hand in greeting, to get Sherlock's attention, and Sherlock heads straight over to him. He slides into the seat across from the boy, without returning the boy's smile.

"I do not require sympathy," Sherlock states.

The boy blinks. "Okay," he says. "Good to know. Is this relevant to the project?"

"You volunteered to be my partner immediately after one of our classmates expressed displeasure at the idea of partnering at me," Sherlock explains. "I assure you, I do not need you to partner with me because the comment in question made you feel sorry for me. I do not need your pity."

The boy's expression softens a little. "He's an arse, you know," he says.

Sherlock knows. He's had plenty of experience with that particular classmate's behaviour, and the behaviour of his friends – often directed towards Sherlock himself. Regardless, Sherlock says, "I see little point in paying attention to what other people say about me."

"That's good," says the boy, "but still, it wouldn't be nice for you to end up being forced to work with him, or someone like him."

Again, Sherlock says, "I don't need you to partner with me out of pity."

"It's not pity. I just feel like you'd work better with someone who doesn't act like some of the people in our class do, and _I_ would also work a lot better with someone other than those people." He pauses, and then adds, "I don't have any close friends in our class, so I need to find a partner as well, and you sound like a nicer partner than a lot of the people in our class."

"I'm hardly 'nice'."

"Well, at least you don't call people freaks behind their backs. Look, why don't we just give it a try? I promise I'm not a terrible partner." When Sherlock does not respond, the boy continues, "And you know your options are limited. You have to work with someone, even if you don't want to."

Sherlock purses his lips, considering. Unfortunately, this boy is right. His professor has made it absolutely clear that Sherlock is not allowed to work alone. So, if Sherlock _has_ to work with someone, then obviously it's preferable to work with someone who is not the boy who called Sherlock a freak, or that boy's friends. Maybe the blond boy sitting in front of him is the best option available.

"I already have ideas for this project," Sherlock says. "None of them are simple."

"Good," the boy replies. "That might give us higher marks. I'm up for the challenge."

"And if you find it too challenging?"

The boy smiles. "Well, I'm not going to give up, if that's what you're asking."

 _You'll do_ , Sherlock thinks.

Aloud, he says, "All right. I'll work with you."

The boy grins. "Great," he says, and then he extends his hand. "I'm John."

Sherlock reaches out and grasps it firmly. "Sherlock," he introduces.

And so it begins.

OoO

Over the next few weeks, Sherlock and John meet regularly during their lunch hours to begin planning their project. During this time, Sherlock makes a number of deductions about his new partner, as he is prone to do. He deduces that John's family has a history of alcoholism – it is something John's sibling has picked up from their father, but John himself is motivated to steer clear of alcohol to avoid going down the same path. He deduces that while John is naturally left-handed, he broke his wrist once as a kid (likely by falling on it when he was playing sport) and so, while not ambidextrous, he is stronger in his right hand than most left-handed individuals would be. He deduces that John plays rugby after school, and has the potential of becoming the team captain.

In addition – less a deduction, more an observation – Sherlock discovers that John is a particularly unusual person when it comes to the way he treats Sherlock.

They work well together, which is bizarre in and of itself. Sherlock does not recall ever working well with anyone, at any point in his life. John is patient and polite, a good listener but also a contributor. He does not openly reject any of Sherlock's ideas, but instead expands on them, adding his own thoughts to develop a better project plan. John's ideas, as it turns out, are actually quite good. John is smarter than he looks, and he is also able to contribute to the development of the project from a different standpoint to Sherlock. Where Sherlock's ideas are based off interest, and a desire to learn how things work or to try things just because he thinks they sound like fun, John's ideas are based off practicality. John can see where the results of a certain experiment might be relevant, for instance, in the field of medical science.

Together, they are able to develop a project that is even better than the one that Sherlock would have done on his own. They find a rhythm in working together, collaborating over several lunch-time meetings, each bringing their own views and ideas to the table. By the end of the third week after they had been given the project, they are fully planned and ready to begin the experiment. Some of their other classmates, by this point, have not even started.

"See?" John says as they pack up their things after their final planning session. "I'm not as bad a partner as you expected, am I?"

"I didn't think you would be a bad partner, exactly," Sherlock says.

"Didn't you?"

"Of course not." A beat, and then Sherlock continues, "You sit at the front of the class, and take notes even when this is not a requirement. This shows that you are a dedicated student and that you are determined to achieve good results, at least in this class, if not in all of your classes. You're motivated and ambitious, which is likely related to your desire to become a doctor. Based on the classes you're taking, I presume your intentions are to study medicine. You know that a medicine degree will be costly, both in terms of time and money, and you're not well-off financially. So, your best chance of succeeding involves you getting a scholarship. This is why you are so motivated to get good grades, especially on a project that is worth the majority of your final grade in this class. So, you see, I was never concerned that you would be a bad partner. You are undoubtedly one of the few in the class who would be willing to put in as much time and effort as a project of this complexity would require."

The words seem to tumble out of Sherlock's mouth before he can stop himself. It's only when the last word leaves his lips that he really hears what he has just said. He does this sometimes – speaks without a filter. It is one of the many reasons why Sherlock has never had any friends.

The words "freak" and "psychopath" and "stalker" echo inside Sherlock's head. John is staring at him, and Sherlock can only wait for the inevitable. John will call him some variation of the words that Sherlock can already hear in his mind, and he will get up and storm off. John might have been the only person in Sherlock's class who Sherlock could possibly work with, and Sherlock will undoubtedly have destroyed any potential of an effective partnership before they can even start the interesting work.

Maybe Sherlock should have kept his mouth shut.

Sherlock has never been very good at keeping his mouth shut.

He wonders if their professor will be more willing to let Sherlock work alone now that Sherlock has tried to work with someone else and has proven that it does not work.

John lets out a breath, and Sherlock's mind is whirring way into the future. In his head, John has already stormed out, John has already told Sherlock that he will not be working with him, and Sherlock is already in the process of considering ways to convince his professor that this is proof that Sherlock needs to work alone.

Then John says, "Wow. That... that was amazing" and Sherlock's mind screeches to a halt.

Sherlock is not stupid, and he is not deaf. He hears the words, and he knows what they mean. However, for a moment, it feels as though his brain cannot comprehend the statement. It's so wrong, so at odds with what Sherlock is used to that for a moment, Sherlock doesn't have the faintest clue what to say. He runs through a series of potential responses in his brain, though none of them reach his lips.

 _Excuse me?_

 _Say that again._

 _Most people don't respond so positively._

 _Amazing?_

In the end, Sherlock settles on a quiet, "That's not what people usually say."

"And what do people usually say?"

"Piss off."

The words earn a bright smile from John, warm and genuine and showing absolutely no indication that he has taken offence. "I suppose people are usually a bit weirded out by you reading their minds, then?"

"I don't read minds."

"Could have fooled me. How did you know all that, then?"

"I observed."

"Observed what?"

"Everything." Sherlock makes a vague gesture to roughly all of John. "Your clothes tell me about your financial situations, the classes you are taking give some indication of your desired career path, and your study habits make it clear that you're motivated and dedicated – that you should be working towards a scholarship is a bit of a shot in the dark, but a good one. It's obvious when you know what to look for."

"It's not obvious to me," John says. "That's amazing."

Sherlock feels something warm blossom in his chest.

OoO

When Sherlock was six years old, he deduced that his father was having an affair.

He had barely understood it at the time. He had not realised the significance of what he was saying until the words were out of his mouth, and he saw the expression change on his mother's face.

Afterwards, Sherlock shut himself up in his room, sitting on his bed with his back against the wall. He made no effort to move, even when the light from outside faded and left it too dark to see.

Mycroft found him a couple of hours later, knees to his chest and arms wrapped around his legs. Mycroft did not turn on the light when he entered, but simply shut the door behind him and took a seat at the end of Sherlock's bed. He did not speak, instead waiting for Sherlock to break the silence when he was ready.

At last, Sherlock asked, "Isn't it better that she knows?" His voice was quiet, hoarse. His tone reflected the unspoken question beneath his words: _Did I do the right thing?_

"No, Sherlock," Mycroft said, and Sherlock knew in that second that his older brother had already made the same deduction that Sherlock had verbalised. Sherlock was not the first to realise this, he was only the first to say it out loud. The tone that Mycroft used was one that Sherlock was unfortunately very familiar with. It was the one Mycroft used whenever Sherlock had been a particularly stupid little boy. Mycroft continued, "You're far too young to understand adult relationships. You should have kept your mouth shut."

Sherlock curled himself up tighter, wishing he could sink into the bed. "I thought he loved her," he murmured. That was what parents did, wasn't it? Love each other?

"I expect he did, once," Mycroft said, "but love never lasts. All hearts are broken in the end."

"Then why did they get married? Why does anyone get married, or bother falling in love, if it will only end in broken hearts?"

"Most people aren't like you and I, Sherlock. They cannot see things objectively. They let themselves believe that their love will last. It just leaves them more hurt when they find that they were wrong."

Sherlock could do nothing but believe his brother on this matter, because Mycroft was seven years his senior and cleverer than Sherlock. He was always right. After a moment, Sherlock asked, "Does this mean they will get a divorce?"

"They might," said Mycroft, "but they might not."

"They might stay together? Even though they are not in love?"

"Most married couples that you see are no longer in love, Sherlock."

"Then why are they still married?"

"Convenience, usually. Divorces are messy, expensive, and complicated. Sometimes, couples will just decide that they can stand one another enough to stay together, if it means they can avoid all the legal complications such as custody battles and..." He trailed off, and then looked down at Sherlock over his nose. "Well, I don't expect you to understand any of that."

Sherlock understands. At least, he understands some of it. He might only be six years old, but he is clever. He has a little bit of knowledge about the law from what he has read in books or seen on the television; he knows what 'custody battles' means. What Sherlock doesn't understand is the sentimental aspect of this whole conversation. He chooses not to try explaining that to Mycroft.

When the silence stretched between them for another moment or two, Mycroft got to his feet, making his way to the door to take his leave. However, when he reached the door, he hesitated, one hand on the door handle. He looked over his shoulder.

"Caring is not an advantage, Sherlock," he said. "Remember that."

Sherlock did.

OoO

Sherlock's parents did not get divorced, and they are still together. However, Sherlock knows that the way they talk to each other nowadays is different to the way that they did before. His mother's smile, when directed towards her husband, never seems quite so bright.

Mycroft's words stick in his mind. It's the one lesson from his brother that Sherlock never forgets. He can hear Mycroft's thoughts whenever he even considers getting close to anyone.

OoO

As the weeks progress, Sherlock's meetings with John become more and more frequent. They switch from lunchtime meetings to afternoon meetings, because that affords them more time to work on their project. They make use of the chemistry lab, because it remains unlocked after school for at least a couple of hours (something Sherlock discovered when he first started high school and something he has used to his advantage ever since). It's nicer than working in the library, as many of the other students at the school do not realise that the library should be used as a study area and not a social area. That, and the library also closes a few hours after the end of school, whereas the chemistry lab is sometimes open much later – depending on how long it takes the cleaners to get in and lock up.

They run into a problem one Wednesday afternoon. The cleaners have come through early, and the chemistry lab is already closed by the time they reach it.

They could use the school library instead, but even if they can get past the noise, they will only have an hour before closing time. It feels like the entire school is against them – of course the chemistry lab would be closed on the same day that the library closes early.

"We could try a café?" John suggests, but Sherlock is immediately dissatisfied with the idea for the same reason that he would be dissatisfied with the library. If anything, a cafe will only be louder than the library. And there will be people everywhere.

His dissatisfaction must show on his face, because John continues, "No? Okay, um, we could try..."

"You could come back to my house," Sherlock suggests suddenly, before he even realises he was going to make that suggestion.

John raises his eyebrows, but then he smiles. "Sure, if you're happy to have me."

"Obviously," Sherlock replies, and he gestures towards the exit. "Come on, then."

OoO

Sherlock's parents are often out late with work, and Mycroft no longer lives at home. Often – but not always – Sherlock is by himself after school for a couple of hours. Sherlock finds, as they make their way to his house, that he is hoping this will be the case today, so that he and John have the house to themselves while they work on their project.

They have no such luck. When Sherlock pushes open the door, he finds his mother is already home, curled up on the sofa with pages of her paper spread out in front of her.

"Sherlock, love, would you mind –" she starts, and then she looks up and realises that they have company. There's a flicker of surprise, but it very quickly melts into a smile. "I didn't know you were bringing a friend home. Who's this?"

A part of Sherlock seems to almost instinctually want to deny that John is his friend, because he doesn't have friends. This particular part of Sherlock is the part that is very closely linked to Mycroft's voice in his head. He suppresses the urge. "This is my lab partner, John," he introduces.

"Nice to meet you," John says, perfectly polite, and it makes Sherlock's mother beam. He can almost hear the thoughts that must be running through her head. _Maybe Sherlock has finally befriended someone who will be a good influence on him._

"We're going to study upstairs," Sherlock says, and immediately he turns to lead the way, eager to end this conversation before it can properly start.

Unfortunately, his mother manages to get the next few words in before they can leave the room. "Of course," she says. "John is welcome to stay as long as he likes. In fact, John, would you like to stay for dinner?"

Immediately, Sherlock thinks, _No._

It's not that he does not want John's company. On the contrary, John is one of the few people whose presence Sherlock can actually stand. However, if John stays for dinner, it's not just him and Sherlock. It's John, and Sherlock, and Sherlock's parents, and Sherlock's mother is talkative. She might ask questions, or tell stories. She might say something embarrassing. She might say something about how Sherlock has never had any friends before. John might leave dinner tonight with the belief that Sherlock is someone to be pitied. Sherlock is _not_ someone to be pitied; he's never had friends before because other people are idiots and _they_ are the ones who should be pitied for being born with such small IQs. John, however, won't understand that.

As soon as these thoughts enter his mind, Sherlock realises he's not actually sure why John pitying him is such a problem. He does not need pity, but he has never cared what people think of him before, not really. With John, it feels different. He concludes that it's simply the fact that they have to continue to work together for another few months, and their ability to do so will be impaired if John starts pitying him.

Sherlock's expression must have portrayed his thoughts, because John glances over at him as though asking permission, and whatever he sees on Sherlock's face makes him say, "Oh, that's okay. I wouldn't want to impose..."

Sherlock's mother does not take the hint. She shakes her head insistently. "No imposition at all," she says. "Please, we'd love to have you. We always have leftovers anyway. This one," – she jerks her head in Sherlock's direction - "doesn't eat enough."

And maybe Sherlock was wrong in thinking that John had read the thoughts from Sherlock's face, because John then says, "Well, all right, if it's not too much trouble..."

"None at all," Sherlock's mother says. "You two go upstairs and work on your project, and I'll let you know when dinner is ready."

"Come along, John," Sherlock says immediately. He might not be able to avoid the awkward conversations that will take place over dinner, but at least he can separate John from his mother now and ensure that these conversations do not start any earlier tonight.

OoO

They get through a fair amount of work before Sherlock's mother calls them for dinner. The work provides a distraction, and Sherlock temporarily forgets his concerns. However, once he hears his mother's voice, he is again filled with dread. He does not want to sit through dinner. He does not want to listen to his mother talk about how nice it is that Sherlock has finally made a friend, after so many years without one. He does not want to hear his mother praise John for being a nice young man, because John is everything Sherlock is not, everything Sherlock should be. Sherlock does not want to sit through these conversations. He does not want to hear how John responds.

They go down for dinner, because there is no escape (save faking a heart attack, which Sherlock briefly considers but decides against because it might only lead his mother to fuss). They take a seat, help themselves to food, and then the conversation starts.

And the conversation is absolutely nothing like what Sherlock expects.

It starts as Sherlock predicted it would, with his mother chatting away as though she has to make up for the silence coming from both Sherlock and Sherlock's father. She asks about John, about his interests, his studies, his plans for the future. She praises him when he speaks of his plans to become a doctor, and Sherlock can see the path that this conversation could take. His mind is already racing ahead; he can already hear his mother saying something about how she wishes that Sherlock would do something so important with his life, and then Sherlock will be the focus of conversation and everything Sherlock does not want to hear tonight will be said.

To Sherlock's surprise, none of his fears about the conversation come to light.

Somehow, without Sherlock really noticing what John is doing, John takes control of the situation. He moves the focus of conversation away from Sherlock, turning it to Sherlock's mother herself. He asks her about what she does for a living, and shows a genuine interest when she tells him that she's a mathematician. He asks about her work, her books, her publications. He does not sound like he is interrogating her, but instead is just making conversation, asking questions and showing genuine interest in the answers. It does not seem to bother Sherlock's mother. In fact, she seems flattered that someone has taken such a keen interest in her, and it keeps the conversation flowing.

Sherlock's mother answers all the questions openly, and she does not re-take control of the conversation for the entire duration of dinner. It's only when they are loading their plates into the dishwasher that Sherlock realises that none of his fears had come true.

"I better get home," John says once all the plates have been put away. "Thank you so much for dinner, Mrs Holmes. It was really nice."

"Thank you for staying," Sherlock's mother replies. "You're more than welcome here any time. Good luck with your project."

"Thank you," John says, and then he turns to Sherlock, inclining his head to wordlessly say 'Shall we?'

Sherlock tips his head in response, and then leads the way to the door.

When they reach the front door, Sherlock turns to face John, who is smiling brightly. John says, "Thank your mum again for me. It was really nice of her to let me stay."

"I believe you thanked her already," Sherlock points out.

"No harm in thanking her again," John replies. "I'll see you at school tomorrow?"

Sherlock nods his head.

"Great," John says, and he beams. "Have a nice night, Sherlock."

He turns and makes his way down the front step, but before he can disappear from sight, Sherlock says, "John", and John stops, turning to face him.

Once John meets his eyes, Sherlock realises he isn't actually sure what he wants to say.

 _Thank you for staying for dinner tonight._

 _Thank you for keeping the conversation on my mother and not letting her talk about me._

 _Did you do that on purpose?_

 _Did you know what you were doing?_

 _Did you know what sort of things my mother would say if you'd given her the chance?_

 _Thank you._

When a couple of seconds pass in silence, John just smiles and says, "Goodnight, Sherlock."

Sherlock wonders, as John walks away, if John knew what Sherlock was going to say there too, even though Sherlock hardly knew himself.

OoO

"Mummy tells me you've been spending quite a lot of time with one of your classmates," Mycroft says over breakfast, on one of the weekends that Mycroft has chosen to spend at home.

Sherlock's immediate response is to sink down lower in his chair, and to raise the book that he is reading so that he is blocking his view of Mycroft, and Mycroft's view of his face. It's a childish way of saying that this conversation is over before it has even begun.

"Sherlock," Mycroft says in a slightly exasperated tone of voice. "Only children believe that someone cannot see you if you cannot see them."

Sherlock lowers the book to glare at his brother, and then immediately raises it again. "I have a major project due and my professor insists that I work on it with someone else," he states. "So, naturally, I have been spending a lot of time with my partner in the interest of getting the project done and ensuring it is of a high quality. I'm not sure why mother believes that this is an important enough topic to discuss with you. I'm sure you have far more important things to do, like run the country."

"I don't run the country, Sherlock, don't be dramatic."

"I wasn't."

Mycroft rolls his eyes. "Mummy thinks you've made a friend," he says, and he spits the word as though it's something distasteful.

"He's not my friend," Sherlock says, feeling oddly defensive. "He's my lab partner, and the only reason I am working with him at all is because my professor insisted on it."

Mycroft gives him a sceptical look, and Sherlock immediately wants to make another argument. It's true, he wants to say. He did try to convince his professor to let him work alone at first. He would not have partnered with John if he had had another option. He's only John's partner because his professor enforced it.

And yet, Mycroft's sceptical look makes Sherlock want to squirm, because Mycroft is the one person whose intelligence might actually exceed Sherlock's, and if Mycroft is ever sceptical about something, it's usually for good reason. If Mycroft ever does not believe what Sherlock has said, it is usually because whatever it is that Sherlock has said is not true.

"What?" Sherlock says.

Mycroft replies with a faux-innocent look. "Nothing, Sherlock," he says. "I merely thought that you of all people would have been resourceful enough to find a way around your professor's request. Or, I would have expected you to agree on paper but still work by yourself, rather than inviting your partner over for 'study sessions'. That is, presuming you really did want to work alone."

"Of course I wanted to work alone," Sherlock argues.

"Did you?"

Sherlock lifts his book up higher to block his view of Mycroft again, and says nothing.

"Don't get attached, Sherlock," Mycroft says quietly after a pause.

Sherlock doesn't respond.

OoO

Sherlock is familiar with the terms that people often use to describe him, and the things that people say about him behind his back. Freak, psychopath, madman – these words are nothing new for him. He has heard similar things throughout his entire life – if not these precise words, then words that imply more or less the same thing. Sherlock is used to it. He has learnt to filter it out and ignore it.

John, however, is not used to hearing such words, even though the words in question are not directed towards him. It does not matter to John that Sherlock does not care what other people say. John cares what other people say about Sherlock, even though Sherlock does not really understand why.

This much is made clear one day at lunch. They wander side-by-side through the hall, engrossed in conversation. Although Sherlock's attention is primarily on John and what they are talking about, Sherlock is always aware of his surroundings at least to some extent. It does not escape his notice that Sally Donovan, walking in the opposite direction to them, changes directions just enough so that she can shove Sherlock's shoulder as she walks past.

Sherlock knows why she did this. Sherlock recently commented on Sally's relationship with one of their peers. Apparently, that relationship had been a secret. Sally has never liked Sherlock, but her dislike has become hatred since that particular conversation.

"Watch it, freak," Sally spits as she walks past. Sherlock barely processes it. Whatever word Sally Donovan refers to him by does not affect him, and he does not want to waste valuable brain power paying attention to her and the things that she says.

John, however, has a different view. He cuts off his words mid-sentence and whirls around on Sally. "I think you're supposed to apologise when you run into someone, not insult them," he says.

"I don't see him apologising," Sally says, turning around to face them.

"Well, that might be because you were the one who ran into him."

Sally crosses her arms over her chest and glares. "Well, even if I did," she says, "I don't see why I should waste my breath. It's not like he has any concept of manners."

"He's always been perfectly well-mannered towards me."

"That's because he _likes_ you." There's a sneer in Sally's voice as she speaks. She makes it sound like the concept of Sherlock liking someone is something to be ashamed of or disgusted by. She makes it sound like a joke.

"I don't think it's because he likes me as much as it's because I don't treat him like you do," John replies without hesitation. "I don't know, maybe if you tried treating him a bit better, you'd both get along."

"Get along with _him_? Not likely."

John glances at Sherlock out of the corner of his eye, and then he returns his gaze to Sally. "You know what, you're right," he says. "If I were him, I wouldn't put any effort into getting along with someone who treats me the way you do anyway."

And with that, John turns, taking quick strides away from Sally before she has the chance to reply. Sally stares at Sherlock for a moment, before letting out a disgruntled sigh and storming away herself.

Sherlock, for a short moment, is so stunned by the conversation that he remains where he is, before hurrying to catch up with John before John leaves his field of vision.

When he reaches John's side, he realises that the reason why John is walking away so swiftly is not merely because John wanted to make a dramatic exit. John is genuinely angry.

"I don't know what she thinks gives her the right to talk to you like that," John says, shoving open the door at the end of the hall with his shoulder. "I mean, how dare she treat you like that?"

"It hardly matters," Sherlock says. "I do not hold her opinion in high enough esteem to care what she thinks of me."

"That doesn't make it okay!" John says, raising his voice slightly. It's clear that John is far more angered by Sally's behaviour than Sherlock himself is – despite the fact that the behaviour in question had been directed towards Sherlock and not John.

"It really bothers you," Sherlock says.

"Hm?"

"What people think of me."

John – who had glanced over at Sherlock when he spoke – turns his attention once more to the path in front of him. "I just think you don't deserve that kind of treatment," he says.

"But why would you care?" Sherlock asks, genuinely confused. "She wasn't talking about you."

"No, but she was talking about you," John says. "And you're my friend."

Sherlock opens his mouth to respond, but the best he can do is, "Oh." It's possibly the least intelligent thing he's ever had to say.

OoO

The night before their project is due, it's still not finished.

It's certainly not for lack of effort. It feels like they have done nothing but work on this project for the last few weeks – lunch times, after school, and, of course, the allocated in-class time. However, the project design they chose is not an easy one. Neither of them ever believed it to be. Even with all the time they have spent on it, there is still more to go.

In their defence, they're _almost_ done. They finished the actual, practical experiment weeks ago, and they have almost finished writing the paper itself. It's just a case of finalising their discussion and writing the conclusion (and, every student's dread – proofreading). Technically speaking, they could do it quickly, in the last few minutes that they have before the library closes for the evening. However, both of them are determined to do well – John motivated by his ambitions to get a scholarship, Sherlock motivated by his interest in the project and his desire to be the best at anything he finds highly interesting. Finishing their assignment in a rush job is not likely to lead them to the grades they want.

"I'll finish it," Sherlock says when they step out of the library, once the librarian finally insists that they leave. "I don't need to sleep."

John – completely unsurprisingly – shakes his head. "No, I wouldn't want to pin that on you and leave you without help," he says.

"We're almost done," Sherlock points out, "and even if I wasn't working on this, I would probably stay up anyway. Sleeping is tedious. There's always something more interesting to do."

"Still," John says. "I'm not going to be able to get any sleep knowing you're up finishing the project anyway. I don't mind pulling an all-nighter every now and again if I need to."

Sherlock studies John's face for a moment, and he knows from John's expression that John is not likely to change his mind. Even though Sherlock has insisted that he is happy to finish the project, John will not let Sherlock work alone. And, Sherlock thinks, maybe it is better if they finish it together anyway.

"All right," Sherlock says at last. "You can come back to my house. I'm sure you'd be welcome to stay the night if need be – my mother adores you."

OoO

It is a long night.

Sherlock is used to staying awake – if he needs to, he can go days with a minimal amount of sleep – but John does not have the same experience. Even after two cups of coffee, Sherlock can see the way John is starting to drift off over the top of his laptop, each blink getting a little bit longer. The fact that he opted to sit on the end of Sherlock's bed probably isn't helping, but the desk is not big enough for two.

"You can go to sleep," Sherlock says, causing John to start with surprise and then shake his head as though to wake himself up."

"No," he says. "No, I'm fine, I'm awake."

"Barely."

John shoots him a glare. "I'll get more coffee, and then I'll be awake," he says, and he steps out of the room to pour another cup before Sherlock can tell him that even the coffee might be a lost cause now.

OoO

After another cup of coffee, another discussion of whether John's current level of consciousness can be classified as 'awake', and a brief debate about the correct way to use in-text citations, they manage to finish the project. It's about three o'clock in the morning.

They take the time to proofread it, and neither of them pick up on any glaring errors, but they are both aware that it is entirely possible that they're simply too tired to notice their own mistakes. At least, John is aware of this. Sherlock has enough confidence in his mental faculties to believe that there are no causes for concern. And, of course, given they do not have the time to get a good night's rest and re-read it when they're less sleep-deprived, the project is as good as it's going to get.

Sherlock sends the project to the printer, and then he creeps downstairs – carefully sneaking past his mother's room – to collect it. He staples it, flicks through to make sure that all of their graphs and diagrams have not moved positions without them noticing it, and then he returns to his room.

When he steps through the door, he finds that John has fallen asleep.

It's not just the nodding-off-then-starting-awake kind of sleep that John had been drifting towards earlier. He has lain himself down on the edge of Sherlock's bed, curled up with his head pillowed on his arm. He does not so much as stir even when Sherlock pushes the door shut behind him.

John's laptop is still sitting open on the bed beside John, and Sherlock moves quietly to pick it up and move it so that there is no risk of John rolling over in his sleep and landing on top of it. The moment the laptop is off the bed, the change in the distribution of weight over the mattress causes John to shift and roll over, curling into the warm spot that the laptop has left behind.

In sleep, John's expression looks soft. The lines on his face are smoothed out and he looks peaceful, content.

Sherlock cannot bring himself to wake him.

Instead, Sherlock takes a spare blanket from the top of his wardrobe and carefully drapes it over John's body, before taking a seat at his desk. He had had no intentions of going to sleep anyway, not when he has to be awake in a few hours. John will make better use of the bed than Sherlock would have. Instead, Sherlock passes his time by jumping through various internet articles, following links to different pages and eventually ending up on entirely new topics, passing the time by reading about crimes and chemicals and anything else that catches his eye.

Sherlock is careful with every move he makes, because he does not want to make too much noise and accidentally wake John.

In his head, he can hear his brother's voice. He can hear his brother tell him not to get attached, because caring for someone means putting oneself at risk. _Caring is a disadvantage_ , Mycroft's voices says in his head. _Do not let yourself get too close_.

Sherlock looks over at John, who has curled himself tighter underneath the blanket, and he thinks that it might be too late.

OoO

They submit their assignment the next morning, but their association does not end there.

John abandons his seat at the front of the class, in favour of sitting next to Sherlock instead. He's still just as attentive and as studious as he was when he was sitting at the front, still taking notes about whatever their professor says, but in between writing those notes he can now get away with writing notes to Sherlock in the margins of his page.

 _Pay attention_ , he writes one day when he catches Sherlock fiddling with his phone underneath his desk. Sherlock thinks for a moment that John is genuinely frustrated with Sherlock's behaviour, until he catches the ghost of a smile that is playing on John's lips.

In the corner of his own book, Sherlock writes, _I don't need to. I know this already._

He catches John furrow his brow. John's entire face moves when he is confused. Lines appear on his forehead and sometimes he even wrinkles his nose.

John writes, _How? We've never covered this before_.

Sherlock writes, _Not in this class. Read about it in one of my brother's textbooks when I was younger._

John writes, _How old were you?_

Sherlock writes, _12._

John reads the number on Sherlock's page, and then he looks up at Sherlock with a visibly surprised look on his face. It makes Sherlock hide a smile.

Sherlock adds onto his note, _Surely my intelligence has ceased surprising you now._

In response, John leans over, writing in the corner of Sherlock's page instead of on his own. _You'll never cease surprising me._

Sherlock is grateful that the teacher then proceeds to call on him to answer a question, because he isn't sure how he could have responded to that.

OoO

Their time together is not limited to their shared chemistry class.

They get in a routine of taking lunch together. At first, it is only on the days that their chemistry class is immediately before their lunch break, but as time goes on, it becomes more frequent. It's easy for Sherlock to memorise John's schedule, to know where his classes finish and where he is likely to take lunch on any one day. Sometimes, Sherlock runs into him by chance, because the school is not huge and people tend to stick to the same few areas at lunch time. Sometimes, Sherlock goes to a certain location where he thinks John might be on purpose. After a month or so has passed, it becomes the norm for them to find one another after class.

It's strange, spending so much time with someone else after Sherlock has grown up wanting to be alone and work alone. Even stranger is the fact that he likes it. He finds he even craves John's company; given the choice between spending his lunch hours alone or spending them with John, more often than not, he will choose John. There is something nice about the companionable silence in the library, when they sit across from each other in the lead-up to exams. It's nice, during the less-busy weeks, to sit in the cafeteria or, weather-permitting, in the sun and just talk.

Sherlock never has to censor himself, with John. Mind, Sherlock has never censored himself with anyone, but in most cases, this usually leads to people calling him some variation of 'Freak' and walking away. John never walks away, and John never tells Sherlock to piss off when he makes deductions (either about John or about someone else). On the contrary – often, when Sherlock makes deductions, John will say something like "Amazing" or "Fantastic" or some other such word that makes something warm and light blossom in Sherlock's chest. Sherlock knows that he is clever, but so many of his deductions are with regards to things that are so blindingly obvious and unbearably simple to him, he has never believed that they are anything to be awestruck by.

And yet, to John, they are something marvellous, something that causes John to give Sherlock that _look_ – a look that Sherlock cannot quite name, but it makes Sherlock feel warm and makes Sherlock want to keep making deductions, just so that John will keep looking at him that way.

Mycroft gives Sherlock a look, too, whenever Sherlock comes home late because Sherlock has been spending time with John after school. The look that Mycroft gives Sherlock is not one that causes a warm and fuzzy feeling. It is a look that makes Sherlock want to squirm, like a child caught with his hand inside a cookie jar. It's a look that says Mycroft knows exactly where Sherlock has been, who he has been with, and, worst of all, exactly how Sherlock is feeling.

Sherlock hates the look that Mycroft gives him, because he has the strangest idea that Mycroft might know how Sherlock is feeling better than Sherlock himself.

OoO

Sherlock's face hurts. His left eye is swollen shut; he cannot see out of it. He can taste blood on his lip and he knows that there is more pooling out of his nostrils.

The words, Sherlock can ignore. Sherlock does not care if people call him a freak, or a psychopath, or a weirdo. What is much harder to ignore is when Sherlock's peers decided to demonstrate their opinions of Sherlock in a much more physical manner. Usually, Sherlock is fast enough to keep himself out of reach, at least until he can either get home or get to class. This time, he hasn't been quite so lucky.

John has already gone home for the day. John had had a free period last thing in the afternoon and had not seen the point in staying around. Sherlock had stayed around, because he had wanted to use the chemistry lab, and it just meant that he had been there when the school was empty enough for his attackers to find him and get away with hurting him without anyone being around to see.

He walks home, hyper-aware of the pain in his face and not so aware of where it is that he is actually going. He hasn't realised that he has taken the route to John's house instead of his own home until he finds himself standing on John's doorstep.

He raises his fist to knock, and then hesitates, and lowers it again. Maybe it is better that John does not see him like this. Plus, John does not live alone, and the last thing Sherlock wants is for someone like John's sister or John's father to open the door instead.

He turns to take his leave, but he gets no more than a few steps towards the path before the door opens behind him, and he hears John's voice.

"Sherlock?"

Sherlock turns to look over his shoulder, and John's expression shifts when he sees Sherlock's face, portraying a number of different emotions. Shock, horror, sadness. Sherlock wipes some of the blood from beneath his nose away with the back of his hand.

"Come inside," John says after a moment. "Let's get you cleaned up."

Sherlock has never been inside John's house before. He's walked home with John a couple of times, because they do not live far from each other, but he has never had the opportunity to step inside. He wishes his eyes weren't so swollen so he could actually take it in properly. He does what he can under the circumstances, looking around as John leads him into the living room. John's house is smaller than Sherlock's. It's quaint, really. They pass the kitchen on the way to the living room, and Sherlock notices an empty bottle of some sort of alcohol sitting in the sink.

When they reach the living room, John places a hand on Sherlock's shoulder to guide him down to the sofa. "You're lucky I heard you outside," he says. "Were you really going to go home looking like this without coming to see me?"

"You're not a doctor yet, John," Sherlock says.

"No, but I can do a better job cleaning you up than you would have done yourself. What happened?"

"Obviously, I got punched. Multiple times."

"Yes, I can see that. I was more interested in who did this."

"Does it matter?"

"You're damn right it does. I need to know whose arse I'm kicking."

Sherlock tips his head to the side, peering up at John through swollen eyes. "Don't you have some sort of moral compass thing that stops you from hurting people?" he asks.

"Only applies to innocent people," John says calmly, and Sherlock has absolutely no idea how serious John is being.

He reaches up and touches his own eye to examine the bruising, and he winces as he discovers how tender the skin is there. Immediately, John bats his hand away.

"Don't do that," he says sternly. "Wait here, I'll go get my first-aid kit. Try not to make it any worse."

(Sherlock _technically_ doesn't disobey John's instructions, simply because his eye is far too bruised for his poking and prodding to make it any worse.)

When John returns, he brings with him a first-aid kit, along with a bowl of warm water and a wash cloth. He sits on the sofa facing Sherlock, with one leg folded up underneath him and the other bent so that his foot reaches the floor. He has to sit close to Sherlock so that he can reach him. Sherlock tries not to think about John's knee against his, warm even through layers of clothing.

John soaks the washcloth in the bowl, wrings it out, and then leans forward. He holds the washcloth in one hand, and with the other, he gently frames Sherlock's face. Sherlock knows that this is to hold him steady, to stop Sherlock from turning his head away from the washcloth. He tries not to think about the intimacy of the touch, the warmth of John's palm against the line of his jaw, both firm and gentle.

He tries not to wonder if John cups someone's face like this when he kisses them.

With the way John's fingers are positioned, if John really paid attention, he could probably feel Sherlock's pulse point. He wonders if John has noticed the way that Sherlock's heart rate picked up the moment John touched him.

John's eyes focus on Sherlock's face, carefully dabbing away the blood with the washcloth. It hurts, because Sherlock's face is bruised and tender, but John is excessively gentle. Sherlock distracts himself by focusing on John's eyes, watching as they move to different spots on Sherlock's face. They're almost crossed, so that John can see him while he's sitting so close.

From a distance, John's eyes look dark, almost brown. Up close, they're not. They're blue. They're not just blue, however – there are flecks of green, and a ring of hazel around the pupil that is only visible when the light hits it just right. John's eyes almost seem to change colour as they move around Sherlock's face. There is something captivating about that.

Sherlock doesn't realise that John has been trying to talk to him until John pulls the washcloth away and frowns.

"Earth to Sherlock, you in there?" he says.

"Hm?"

"God, you're out of it, aren't you?" John says, returning to his task of cleaning Sherlock's face now that he has Sherlock's attention. "I hope these guys didn't give you a concussion."

"They didn't," Sherlock says. "I was merely thinking."

Sherlock is pleased with how steady his voice sounds.

"Okay," John says. "So what happened? How'd you end up getting into a fight?"

"You're aware that people generally tell me to piss off when I make deductions," Sherlock says, his voice catching mid-sentence as John touches a particularly tender part of his face and makes him wince. He recovers quickly. "Sometimes, people tell me to piss off without words."

John purses his lips. "What deduction did you make?"

"I pointed out to one of our classmates that his girlfriend had been keeping her distance from him intentionally in the hopes that he would soon fall out of whatever feeling he has for her and break up with her. She quite clearly did not love him anymore but did not want to break up with him out of fear for the way that he might react."

Sherlock is aware that this is the kind of deduction that is more likely to get him hurt. He expects John to tell him as much, to say something along the lines of, 'Well, that would be why he hit you, then.'

Instead, John says, "Well, I'm not surprised his girlfriend doesn't love him anymore if he's the sort of person who hits people."

Sherlock lets out a soft hum of agreement, and they fall silent.

It's a few moments later when John finishes cleaning Sherlock's face, and he puts the washcloth down into the bowl. "Well," he says. "You're slightly less likely to give your mother a heart attack now. Slightly." A beat, and he adds, "Your eye will hurt for a while. The only thing I can recommend is icing it to help the swelling go down."

Sherlock nods his head in acknowledgement, although he's certainly not diligent enough with his health and wellbeing to actually do as John says. He's barely even heard it, because certain other senses seem to have overridden his sense of hearing.

His face is tender, but not enough to justify the way that he can still feel the imprint of John's hands on his skin, even once John stands up and steps away.

OoO

They receive the marks for their project a few days later.

They get the highest mark in the class.

Sherlock is pleased, because proving that he is intelligent and achieving results on something that he did dedicate a lot of time and effort to is satisfying. Mostly, however, Sherlock is satisfied because of the bright, shocked-yet-ecstatic look that comes over John's face when their professor hands their paper back.

It brings them closer together, in a sense. The mark at the top of the paper, circled in red, tells them what they already believed to be the case – they make a great team. The mark is proof that they work well together, which makes them want to continue to work together (even when it's not mandatory – which is saying a lot given that Sherlock has never _wanted_ to work with anyone before).

So they work together on projects in the chemistry class they share, and they even take to helping one another in their other classes too. They can bounce ideas off each other when planning independent projects, and they study together for exams. Sherlock helps John with memory techniques and quizzes him in the lead-up to exams to keep him on his toes. John helps Sherlock by proofreading his essays and pointing out all the areas where Sherlock had begun assuming too much knowledge in his audience and has skipped ahead and is not making sense.

When they don't have assessments, sometimes John will help Sherlock with the experiments that he chooses to run on his own, just for fun.

More accurately, Sherlock does the experiment and John sits and occasionally passes Sherlock things and once or twice puts out a minor fire.

They're practically joined at the hip – where you find one, you know the other is not far away. Sometimes other students will ask Sherlock where to find John – often they will refer to John as Sherlock's "better half". Sherlock does not mind it. Sherlock does not mind any of it. He has never felt this close to anyone before. It feels like nothing could come between them.

Then John starts dating.

OoO

Sherlock has always known that John likes girls. Anyone who pays even a little bit of attention to John would know this. John's gaze shifts whenever an aesthetically-pleasing girl walks past. He talks to girls in a different way to the way he talks to boys – it takes Sherlock a while, but he eventually realises that the difference is that when he talks to girls, he is flirting. John leans a little bit closer, smiles a little bit brighter, finds extra excuses to touch their arms or to take their hands in his. Sherlock would also guess that John's heart rate speeds up when he is around girls, too, but Sherlock has never been physically close enough to John while he's around a girl to confirm this.

Sherlock has tried to look at girls, to see what John sees when John looks at them. When he thinks about it, Sherlock can acknowledge that some girls are aesthetically pleasing. He knows that there are certain features that are generally accepted to be attractive; he can acknowledge that there is something pleasing about the symmetry of a girl's face or the smoothness of her skin. However, this is as far as his acknowledgement goes. He can acknowledge when John might find a girl attractive, but Sherlock is not attracted to them himself. How pretty a girl is does not even catch Sherlock eyes automatically. When Sherlock meets someone – girls, boys, anyone – he immediately collects data to make deductions, based off the way they dress or the way they hold themselves. How pretty they are does not give Sherlock any data to work with.

So, Sherlock cannot see what John sees when John looks at girls. He doesn't understand how it must feel for John, what John experiences when he decides that he want to date one of the girls in their class. Sherlock has tried looking at boys, instead, but that's little different. There's a part of Sherlock that might feel a little more drawn to boys than he is to girls, that much is true, but Sherlock can hardly be drawn to the boys at school when their behaviour towards him is so unpleasant to experience.

Then there's John, and John is another story entirely.

Objectively speaking, John is attractive. Sherlock knows that he is not the only one who sees this, because Sherlock sees the way that girls look at John too. John's facial features are arranged in a way that is widely accepted as handsome. John is fit, well-built, which is something that should be attractive in a potential mate from an evolutionary standpoint. John's eyes are a mixture of colours that change when the light hits them in certain ways. They seem to brighten when he is happy. John's smile seems to light up a room, and it's almost contagious. When John smiles at Sherlock, it feels like something shifts inside his chest.

Sherlock is vaguely aware that these last few points are not objective. Maybe Sherlock isn't objective about this. Maybe he never has been.

It's not just about the way John looks, however. It's so much more than that. Sherlock has heard in the past that it is a person's personality that makes them beautiful, and once upon a time, he would have thought this is ridiculous. Regardless of a person's personality, their facial features remain constant. Whether they are kind or rude has no bearing on that. However, the more Sherlock gets to know John, he realises that he was wrong about this. John is warm, and kind, and good, and it's like it shines through his skin and makes him glow. Physically, John is attractive, but his personality turns him into something that's far more breathtaking.

So Sherlock feels different around John. John is magnetic; Sherlock's eyes drift to him whenever they're together in a room. It's like there's a part of his brain, a part of his Mind Palace, that is permanently aware of John's presence, even when most of Sherlock's attention is on something else. When John stands too close, Sherlock is aware of the brush of his skin, or the tickle of John's breath against his ear when John leans close to be heard over the noise. Around John, everything seems heightened. Around John, Sherlock feels warm and his chest feels light.

But John doesn't look at Sherlock in the same way that Sherlock looks at John.

OoO

It's not like they stop being friends, of course. It's hardly as though people abandon all their friends when they start dating. However, the fact that John is now dating does mean that they do not spend as much time with one another as they used to. Sometimes, Sherlock will suggest an activity, and John will decline, because he already has plans with his girlfriend at the time.

Sherlock doesn't like to consider himself to be a jealous person. He knows he should not be jealous, because John is not and never would be his, and even if he wasn't dating Sarah, or Jeanette, or the one with the spots, or the one with the dog, he would not be dating Sherlock. Plus, all the girls that John dates are so much less intelligent than Sherlock, so they are nothing to be jealous about. However, that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt, when John chooses to spend time with them and Sherlock is on his own.

Of course, it's not like it completely comes between them. They still see each other almost every day, and John's love life isn't going to stop that.

What does stop that is John's graduation.

OoO

With John's dedication and John's grades, it's no surprise that he gets the scholarship he's been working towards from the start. He gets into Cambridge, which is exactly where John wanted to go. Sherlock is glad that John is happy, but it puts John a couple hours away from Sherlock's home.

Sherlock has spent most of his life alone, but the months that follow John's graduation are the first time Sherlock has ever felt lonely.

OoO

Although they are apart, they do not fall apart. The benefit of living in today's day and age is that friendships are not limited by distance. They text and they email, and it's not the same as sitting together at lunch or passing notes beneath the desk, but it's better than nothing. Plus, two hours isn't really that far, and John has the option to come home from time to time on weekends.

It's not enough, it's not the same, but it will do.

OoO

School is infinitely more tedious this year.  
SH

Aren't you supposed to be in class?  
\- JW

I am in class.  
SH

Aren't you supposed to be paying attention in class, then?  
\- JW

Dull.  
SH

Everything is dull in your mind.  
\- JW

Obviously. Tell me university is at least marginally more intellectually stimulating than school.  
SH

It's definitely more intellectually stimulating. You might even find some of the things that I'm learning challenging. Chem isn't quite as exciting without you blowing things up next to me, though.  
\- JW

I only blew things up once.  
SH

I count 3 times at least.  
\- JW

They were controlled explosions, they don't count.  
SH

Our professor would disagree.  
\- JW

Our professor was an idiot.  
SH

You think everyone is an idiot.  
\- JW

Most people are.  
SH

You're a real charmer, you know that?  
\- JW

Go pay attention in class like you're supposed to.  
\- JW

Dull.  
SH

Yes, you've said. Go on, behave.  
\- JW

Yes, mother.  
SH

And Sherlock?  
\- JW

I miss you too.  
\- JW

OoO

When the Christmas break approaches, Sherlock's mother starts planning a Christmas party.

It's nothing extravagant, and involves no more than their immediate family, but it's certainly not something they do every year. When Sherlock asks why they're bothering, his mother gives him some nonsense about Christmas time being family time, and with Mycroft now off and working in the real world like a proper adult, and Sherlock beginning his search for universities for next year, she thinks it's a good time for them to all get together.

Mycroft complains vocally, and Sherlock, while not so vocal, certainly doesn't make it seem like he's thrilled. However, his mother has her mind set on having this party and when Sherlock's mother has her mind set on something, there's no stopping her.

OoO

A few weeks prior to Christmas, Sherlock realised that there is one thing that would make the party much less unbearable.

He suggests the idea to his mother one afternoon, when she is in a good mood and most likely to be agreeable. "Can I invite John over for Christmas?"

Sherlock expects that he will need to make a strong argument. He expects his mother to insist that the party was supposed to be for family only. Sherlock expects to need to explain that that is exactly why he wants John to come.

To his surprise, his mother meets his suggestion with no argument whatsoever. If anything, she seems thrilled with the idea.

Sherlock goes from dreading Christmas to looking forward to it.

OoO

Sherlock's excitement lasts up until he gets a reply to the invitation text. John already has plans for Christmas with his girlfriend and her family.

It makes something in Sherlock's chest feel colder than the weather should permit.

OoO

Sherlock had not been looking forward to Christmas in the first place, when his mother had first brought up the idea, but somehow, the knowledge that John could have been with him but will not be makes it even more unbearable.

It makes it worse still when his mother brings John up in conversation over Christmas lunch.

"It's a shame that John couldn't make it, isn't it?" she says. She doesn't take the hint from Sherlock's silence that this is not something Sherlock wants to discuss. "I suppose he wanted to spend Christmas with his family, didn't he?"

Sherlock knows that he should keep his mouth shut, because anything he says will further this conversation, and he really, really wants it to stop, but he finds he can't help himself. "He's not with his family," he says tightly. "He's with his girlfriend."

He tries not to spit the word, but he knows from the look that Mycroft gives him that he failed.

His mother, on the other hand, doesn't seem to notice. Instead, she says, "Oh, how lovely. How long have they been together?"

Sherlock shrugs his shoulders in response, both because he doesn't know for sure and because he doesn't want to keep talking.

His mother says, "It must be pretty serious, mustn't it, if they're together over Christmas."

Sherlock finishes the last mouthful of his dinner and excuses himself so that he doesn't have to hear any more of this.

OoO

Later, Sherlock sits up in his room and twists his phone around in his hands. Part of him wants to text John, but he knows that John probably won't reply if he's too busy with his girlfriend. It's worse to think of John not replying to a text that Sherlock sends than it is to think about John just not texting him to start off with.

He wonders what John is doing right now. He knows he shouldn't think about it, but he cannot help himself. He wonders if he's sitting around the table, making small talk with his girlfriend's parents, presenting himself as the perfect boyfriend that Sherlock knows John must be. He wonders what John's girlfriend's parents think about John. Do they consider him a lovely young man, just like Sherlock's own mother does? Are they pleased that their daughter has decided to date someone so perfect?

He wonders if John is holding his girlfriend's hand under the table, or resting his hand on her knee. He wonders if they're kissing whenever they're out of her parent's line of sight. He wonders if they're sharing a room, if John holds her while they fall asleep.

When there is a faint knock at the door some time later, Sherlock does not respond. He does not want to speak to his family; he wants to be left alone. Unfortunately, the person behind the door does not take a hint. There's another knock, and then the door opens, and Sherlock glances up briefly to see his brother enter before he looks away again. Sherlock feels like he's six years old again, sitting up in the dark after making that one deduction that had caused so much harm, alone until Mycroft had come to give him that one message that had always stuck in Sherlock's mind – and the one message that Sherlock had completely disregarded.

Mycroft takes a seat on the edge of Sherlock's bed, and Sherlock immediately angles his body away from him.

"I don't recall inviting you in," Sherlock says.

"I do not recall you telling me to go away, either," Mycroft replies.

"Go away."

Mycroft doesn't.

Sherlock exaggerates turning even further so he's completely facing the other way.

Silence stretches between them for a moment, until Mycroft is the one to break it. "I did warn you, Sherlock," he says. "You knew from the start that this was a risk."

"I didn't ask for your advice, Mycroft."

"That does not mean you should not have taken it."

"If you've got nothing more creative to say than _I told you so_ , then I suggest you leave."

Mycroft remains quiet for a moment, but apparently, 'I told you so' was the extent that Mycroft actually has to say. A moment later, he gets to his feet. "You knew better, Sherlock, and yet you let yourself care anyway. You brought this on yourself."

Sherlock says nothing, and after a moment, Mycroft walks away, and Sherlock is alone.

OoO

A few minutes later, Sherlock's phone buzzes, and Sherlock all but trips over himself to pick it up. John's name lights up on the screen.

If I have to sit through one more board game, I might scream.  
\- JW

Sherlock's chest suddenly feels lighter.

OoO

John breaks up with his girlfriend a little after New Year's Day. Sherlock deduces that John would have done so sooner, because their uncomfortable Christmas together must have made it clear that they were not as compatible as partners should be, but John is a kind enough person to not let his now ex-girlfriend associate the time between Christmas and New Years with a breakup. The added bonus is that John and his girlfriend break up on fairly amicable turns – as it turns out, John's girlfriend had not enjoyed Christmas together either.

It frees up a substantial proportion of John's time, and John spends the rest of his break with Sherlock.

Sherlock tries not to feel smug.

He fails.

OoO

John goes back to university, and Sherlock goes back to school. He graduates this year. He's almost done, almost free.

There's a timer in the back of Sherlock's mind now, constantly counting down the number of days until graduation.

215 days to go.

OoO

Have you started applying for uni yet?  
\- JW

Technically, the deadline isn't until January next year.  
SH

That does not mean you can afford to wait until next year. Especially if you're going for one of the more prestigious universities.  
\- JW

What makes you think I'm going for a more prestigious university?  
SH

Are you kidding? This is you were talking about. As if you could stand going to a less-prestigious university and being around "idiots".  
\- JW

Maybe I don't plan on going to university at all.  
SH

Is that true?  
\- JW

There are no university degrees that can form a pathway to my desired career.  
SH

Why? What's your desired career?  
\- JW

Consulting detective. I invented the job.  
SH

You can't invent jobs and expect to actually find a job in that area.  
\- JW

You can if you are intelligent enough.  
SH

Right. Well, why can't you just do university degrees that would help you get a regular detective job? Surely then you can branch out into "consulting detective". Whatever that is.  
\- JW

Many detectives start as police officers, and police officers do not necessarily need a specific degree to get a job. Some positions want a degree in criminal justice or law enforcement, but that is not what I want to study. I could gain a perfectly adequate understanding of the criminal justice system from the internet. I do not need to sit in a class and be talked at.  
SH

You're going to sit in a class and be talked at regardless of what degree you do, you realise.  
\- JW

I acknowledge that. That being said, there are certain classes that would have a more prevalent practical component to balance it out.  
SH

Chemistry.  
\- JW

Exactly.  
SH

You'd do really well in a chem degree. And you'd enjoy it a lot more than school. So much of it is self-directed, you'd get the chance to make your own experiments all the time.  
\- JW

I expect as much.  
SH

Do you know what uni you're going to apply for?  
\- JW

Cambridge's chemistry department is ranked the best in England.  
SH

It is, isn't it? :)  
\- JW

The emoticon was unnecessary.  
SH

Emoticons are always necessary.  
\- JW

Obviously, I do not want you to choose a uni based solely on the fact that I'm there, and I wouldn't expect you to anyway, but if you did happen to get into Cambridge, I'd be very happy.  
\- JW

Of course you would.  
SH

That's Sherlock speak for "I too would be happy but I'm not going to say that because emotions are below me".  
\- JW

That's not what I said.  
SH

No, it's subtext. Trust me, I know you.  
\- JW

Anyway. I really need to finish this essay that you've been distracting me from. Talk soon!  
\- JW

OoO

Sometimes, Sherlock dreams.

They are rarely linear, but more often consist of fragments, bits and piece she that don't make a perfect story but that make sense while he is asleep. They're innocent, undoubtedly far more so than the dreams that many of his classmates would have had throughout their teenage years, but all the same, they make Sherlock feel warm.

He dreams of John feeling the way he feels. He dreams of John telling him as much – sometimes with words, sometimes without. Sometimes he dreams that they are together – he never knows when or how it started, but in the dreams, it feels right. Sometimes he dreams of the way it might feel if John were to kiss him.

He would have thought that by now the dreams would have stopped – or, at least, that he would have stopped feeling the way he feels when he wakes up.

That said, with John, a lot of things don't go the way he would expect.

OoO

You know what I just thought of?  
\- JW

Something so remarkably interesting that you had to text me about it immediately?  
SH

Exactly. Your formal is coming up.  
\- JW

You and I have very different definitions of interesting.  
SH

It's your last major high school social event, a celebration of your graduation, and the last time you will see most of the people you've practically grown up with. It's pretty exciting.  
\- JW

I beg to differ.  
SH

Yeah, you would. "I'm Sherlock Holmes and I'm far too cool for formals with lowly peasants."  
\- JW

That's hardly my reasoning.  
SH

Might as well be.  
\- JW

So. Are you asking someone?  
\- JW

Asking someone what?  
SH

Don't play stupid, it doesn't suit you. Asking someone to formal!  
\- JW

That would be pointless, seeing as I had no intention to attend myself.  
SH

WHAT?  
\- JW

Were the capital letters really necessary?  
SH

Always. But seriously, you're not going?  
\- JW

Of course not. Why does this surprise you?  
SH

Because it's FORMAL.  
\- JW

Again with the capital letters. It doesn't change the definition of the word, nor my decision on the matter.  
SH

Well it should. You have to go.  
\- JW

I have to do no such thing. It's not mandated, it has no bearing on my graduation, and there are no negative repercussions for not going.  
SH

The negative repercussion is that you're going to miss formal. You'll be missing out!  
\- JW

Highly unlikely.  
SH

Come on, Sherlock. It's the last time you're going to see all your classmates.  
\- JW

I'm sure that would be an excellent incentive if I actually got on with any of my classmates. However, I do not, and I cannot say that there is anyone currently at the school that I will miss after graduation.  
SH

You might do. You might not realise it now but I know that there are people at the school who you've spoken to a bit, and you might actually miss them a bit. And then you'll regret not going to formal to say goodbye.  
\- JW

Given the fact that we live in a day and age that gives us access to mobile phones and the internet, if I did miss anyone – which is highly unlikely – I would be able to get in touch with them later. I do not need to go to formal to say goodbye.  
SH

Come on, Sherlock. You won't know what you're missing unless you go. Maybe it would be nice for you to have some fond memories to look back on.  
\- JW

More likely, going to formal will be a waste of my time and result in absolutely no fond memories to look back on. I'd rather stay home and use my time more productively.  
SH

Whatever you do at home can be left for one night.  
\- JW

It could, if there was something more important. Formal is not more important.  
SH

It is! It's FORMAL.  
\- JW

And again with the capital letters. Are you hoping that repeating it enough will make me change my mind?  
SH

Maybe.  
\- JW

Why are you so desperate for me to go? You're at uni and your life is in no way impacted by whether I choose to spend my Thursday night around a bunch of idiots in nice clothing or at home by myself.  
SH

I just don't want you to miss out on what could actually be a really amazing night for you.  
\- JW

I will not be missing out on anything that is worth missing.  
SH

No, seriously.  
\- JW

It's just. I know you. I know you have a tendency to keep to yourself, especially since I graduated, and I don't want you to be, you know, lonely.  
\- JW

I'm not lonely.  
SH

You text me at almost every available opportunity, and you spend entire weekends with me whenever I come back home.  
\- JW

Which is okay, by the way. You're allowed to miss me.  
\- JW

I fail to see the point to this conversation.  
SH

Just go to formal, Sherlock. I had a really good time at mine and I don't want you to miss out on that. - JW

You had a really good time at yours because you managed to convince Mary to go with you. She was all you talked about for weeks.  
SH

Well, you could ask someone if you wanted to. Maybe then you'd be the one who does nothing but talk about your formal date.  
\- JW

Not likely.  
SH

Oh come on. It's totally possible. What about Molly from biology? She'd probably jump for joy if you asked her to go with you. Once she stopped blushing.  
\- JW

I'm not interested.  
SH

Of course you're not. You're above feelings. How could you do something as lowly as fancy someone?  
\- JW

It's almost a pity, really. You could have any girl you wanted.  
\- JW

I'll take your word for it.  
SH

Or any guy you wanted, for that matter.  
\- JW

That's fine, by the way. If you like boys.  
\- JW

I know it's fine.  
SH

Good. That's good.  
\- JW

So you do, you know, like boys?  
\- JW

I don't want to talk about this.  
SH

Okay. Okay, fine. Just think about it, yeah? You deserve to be happy.  
\- JW

And my happiness is in any way dependent on whether or not I go to this formal and whether I take a partner with me?  
SH

Course not. But if there is someone, I don't want you to shut yourself up because you're convinced you're not allowed to feel that way. If there is someone you want to ask to formal, then go for it.  
\- JW

A moment ago you were convinced I was above feelings, now you're convinced that there is someone I secretly want to ask to formal.  
SH

I'm convinced that you think you're above feelings and you would intentionally try to ignore any romantic feelings you experienced. Which you shouldn't do, because it's nice to be with someone and it's a shame if you miss out on that because you're scared of the way you feel.  
\- JW

Is this conversation over?  
SH

This conversation is never over.  
\- JW

I think it is. I'm going to bed.  
SH

It's 9pm, there's no way you're actually going to bed this early.  
\- JW

I am if it will put an end to this.  
SH

Fine, fine, spoilsport.  
\- JW

Just think about it, okay? Because I mean it. If you wanted to, you could have anyone you wanted.  
\- JW

No.  
SH

You could.  
\- JW

No. Not anyone.  
SH

What?  
\- JW

What's that supposed to mean?  
\- JW

Sherlock?  
\- JW

OoO

They don't text for a couple of weeks.

John tries, of course – he follows up with an "Are you okay?" text the next morning, a "Talk to me" a few days later and finally a "Text me back you moron, you're starting to worry me" the next week. Sherlock doesn't text back, because Sherlock does not want to have this conversation. He did not want to have that conversation in the first place. He did not mean to say the things he said, and he does not want to deal with the consequences.

He only ends up texting back when John starts a conversation with something completely unrelated to their last conversation – John texts about a part of his chemistry homework that he is struggling with. Sherlock is not stupid – Sherlock knows that John intentionally chose that topic of conversation because it's something that Sherlock is comfortable discussing, unrelated to the one thing Sherlock will not discuss, and thus the most likely topic that would lead Sherlock to text back. It works, only because Sherlock does not like not talking to John, either.

Formal doesn't come up in conversation again.

OoO

The closer formal gets, the harder it is to avoid hearing about it. Sherlock catches girls giggling to themselves in corners, flocking together in packs, apparently making it hard for boys to approach them. He sees couples start talking about how they're going to dress – apparently there is some need to colour code pocket squares and formal dresses. When the girls start buying their own dresses, suddenly laptop and phone screens and filled with images of people showing theirs off.

Sherlock doesn't want to think about it. Sherlock doesn't want anything to do with it.

Molly Hooper from biology pulls him aside after class one day, and Sherlock knows what she is going to say before she has opened her mouth. It's obvious in her body language, in the redness in her cheeks and the way she fiddles with her hair, twirling it around her finger.

He tells her he's not going to formal before she properly gets the words out. It makes her deflate, and her eyes drop to the floor.

After a moment, he tells her that he'd been under the impression that Greg Lestrade was going to ask her. It's not strictly speaking true, but it's not a lie that Greg has been stealing glances at Molly out of the corner of his eye for the better half of the year.

OoO

It's a relief when formal finally does come around, but not because Sherlock is going. Sherlock is not going. The thought of going never once crossed his mind. However, when formal finally comes, it means there are only hours before it finishes, and then Sherlock does not have to hear about it anymore. That, and the end of formal also means that it's almost time for graduation, and then Sherlock can get out of here and never come back, never see some of the people he's gone to school with for years.

He's lucky, staying at home, because he has the place to himself. His parents had booked some sort of overnight trip on the night of formal, likely under the assumption that Sherlock would actually go. The idea that they assumed that for even a second is ridiculous, but maybe his parents were holding onto some sort of wishful thinking. All the same, they do not cancel their trip at the discovery that Sherlock will be home that night, not when Sherlock insists that he's fine and would rather be alone anyway. He has the house to himself, which is ideal.

Everyone else will be at formal. Everyone else will be dancing and kissing and acting like normal people, nothing like Sherlock himself. Sherlock is glad that he's not there.

OoO

Sherlock expects to spend that night alone. He is prepared for it.

It doesn't turn out that way.

OoO

When the doorbell rings, Sherlock ignores it.

On the off chance that his parents have come home early, or his brother has decided to come home for the night, they wouldn't be ringing the doorbell. They all have keys and could let themselves in. Sherlock is most definitely not expecting visitors, because the only person who ever visits Sherlock is currently two hours away, and his family would not have invited anyone over while they are not here. So, when the doorbell rings, Sherlock concludes that it must be a charity person or a door-to-door salesperson, and he chooses to pretend he's not home.

This works up until the doorbell rings again.

And again.

And then there's a knock.

And another knock.

And it's clear that the person on the other side of the door isn't going anywhere.

Pretending to not be home is clearly not working – the person behind the door must know that Sherlock is in here. Maybe they caught sight of one of the lights turning on through the window. Letting out a loud sigh, Sherlock gets to his feet and storms over to the door, prepared to tell whatever salesperson is behind it to piss off in no polite terms.

He yanks the door open forcefully, and then freezes at the sight before him.

"It's about time," John says. There's a smile on his face. He has a bag slung over his shoulder, and a pile of DVDs under his arm. "I was beginning to think you'd lied to me and you'd actually decided to go to formal."

"You didn't tell me you were coming home," Sherlock says, which sounds like a terribly stupid thing to say once it's out of his mouth. It just makes John grin.

"Surprise," he says. "Not telling you was kind of the point."

"Why?"

John shrugs. "I was going to come back this weekend anyway, so I figured I might as well make it a day earlier. Besides, no one should be alone on formal night. Even geniuses who think they're too good for formals." He peers past Sherlock's shoulder, and then asks, "Can I come in, or are you busy?"

Sherlock steps aside to let John in.

OoO

"Okay," John says, going through his bag. "So, I brought a few different movies, and popcorn, and a few boxes of tea because I have serious doubts about the adequacy of your tea collection here..."

"You're acting as though I need cheering up," Sherlock says. When John looks up at him questioningly, he continues, "It's hardly as though I'm here as some clichéd, heartbroken teenager who didn't get a date to formal. I'm not at formal out of my own choice, and I was not disappointed to be home by myself. This is hardly necessary."

"Do you want me to go?"

"No," Sherlock says quickly. "Of course not. I'm merely pointing out that if I gave you the wrong impressions the last time we talked, and made you think I was..." He doesn't know how to end that sentence. Sad? Lonely?

John shakes his head. "You didn't. Trust me. Now, have you seen _Inception_? It'll mess with your head. I think you'll like it."

OoO

They curl up on the sofa, and John puts the movie on. The sofa is easily large enough for the two of them to sit side-by-side without touching, but Sherlock knows how to position himself so that he takes up a little bit more space than necessary without making it obvious that he is doing so. His knee brushes against John's, and he savours the warmth he can feel at that small point of contact between them.

Sherlock cannot help but wonder what John would do if Sherlock were to lean into him. Would he instinctively move away, or would he allow Sherlock to sit closer? Would John do anything if Sherlock were to, seemingly unintentionally, slouch against John's side, pressed together from shoulders to hips? Would John mind if Sherlock leaned his head on John's shoulder?

John probably would mind. That kind of position, that kind of contact, is not socially acceptable for friends. It should be socially acceptable for friends. Sherlock would like to be that close to John, physically, even though they are not romantically involved.

It's a terribly sentimental desire. Sherlock hates himself for it a little bit.

He watches the movie, but his attention is divided, as is always the way when John is involved. He's following the film's storyline, but he is more interested in watching John, studying his reaction to different parts. John is very expressive when he watches movies and television – which Sherlock knows, because they have had "movie nights" before. Even when John has seen a movie before, even several times, he smiles or laughs and generally demonstrates his enjoyment of them. It's always clear that he is invested in the storyline, even when he's seen it before.

John looks different this time to the way he normally looks when they watch movies. He does not seem as engrossed in it as he usually does. He looks distracted, and almost tense.

If John just looked distracted, Sherlock would assume that maybe this movie is one he has seen so many times that he is bored of it. However, that would not explain the tension that is visible in John's neck and shoulders. Is John stressed about something? Is he uncomfortable? There are certainly tense scenes in the movie, but nothing that really warrants this kind of reaction. It must be something unrelated to the movie, something that is occurring in John's life. Is it due to uni, to upcoming exams and assessments? Is it something to do with John's relationships? John hasn't mentioned a girlfriend recently – unless he did and Sherlock chose to tune him out, which isn't all that unlikely.

Is it something to do with tonight, with being here by Sherlock's side?

Sherlock shifts on the sofa so that he does not take up as much space, so his knee isn't pressing into John's.

OoO

When the movie finishes and the credits start rolling, John does not get up and make a move to turn it off. It reaffirms Sherlock's suspicions that something is wrong, but he cannot work out precisely what that is.

"Problem?" he asks, and John's head snaps towards Sherlock. He looks almost as though he has forgotten that Sherlock is there at all.

"No," John says. "No, no, no problem."

Sherlock frowns, because this certainly does not seem to be the case. There is a problem, there has to be a problem. Why else would John be behaving like this?

Sherlock considers pressing the topic, but it turns out, it's not necessary. John grabs the remote next to him and mutes the television, before turning so he is facing Sherlock.

"Okay," he says. "I'm going to make a deduction."

The statement sheds no light on the situation, and Sherlock furrows his brows, simultaneously intrigued and inexplicably nervous. "All right?" he says, making it sound more like a question than a statement.

"I'm going to make a deduction, and if I'm wrong, we're going to put on another movie and we'll never talk about this again. But if I'm not wrong, then you need to promise me you'll be honest."

Sherlock still isn't entirely certain where this has come from or where this is going, but he feels as tense as John looked earlier. His stomach churns, but, wordlessly, he nods his head.

"Okay," John says, and then he takes a breath, before finally saying, "You fancy me."

Immediately, thoughts spring to Sherlock's mind on how to respond, on how to deny it without making it seem like a lie. He's a good liar, he always has been. John will believe him, and they will move onto the next movie and they never have to have this conversation. Their friendship will not suffer; Sherlock will not ruin a perfectly good friendship with icky, messy feelings. However, though Sherlock opens his mouth, the words do not, or cannot, reach his lips. After a moment, he closes his mouth and hangs his head, eyes on his lap.

"That's a yes, then," John says. His voice is quiet. "Thank you for not lying to me."

Sherlock cannot make out the emotions in John's voice, but he can imagine what they must be. Discomfort. Disgust. John is kind, and good, and won't openly confess to feeling this way, but this will ruin them all the same. John won't consciously decide to stop being Sherlock's friend because Sherlock desires more, but he will pull away unconsciously. Perhaps he'll even feel guilty for not feeling the same way. Texts will become more infrequent, conversations will become more impersonal. Maybe John will be excessively wary of hurting Sherlock's feelings, and will stop saying some of the things they would talk about now. They will drift apart. This will end.

Sherlock regrets ever bringing up anything even remotely related to sentiment. He regrets ever giving any indication that he might feel this way. He wonders how he thought he could get away with this at all. John can be so marvellously unobservant at times, but of course he would be observant about the one thing that matters.

"What other movies did you bring?" Sherlock asks, in a feeble attempt to change the subject. He cannot even look at John as he says it; instead, he focusses on the pile of DVDs that are sitting by the television. He goes to get to his feet, but John stops him with a hand on his wrist, and Sherlock curses his body for having a physiological response to such a simple, innocent touch.

"Sherlock," John says, his voice soft and gentle but firm at the same time. "Sit. And just... hear me out, okay?"

Sherlock hesitates, and then he sits. He still doesn't meet John's eyes. He doesn't want to see the discomfort on his face.

"I wasn't sure," John says after a pause, quietly. "I couldn't get what you said out of my head when we were texting – about the formal. You're really hard to read sometimes, and it sounded like maybe you did actually have feelings for someone. And I wasn't sure that it was me, but I know you, and I know you're not really close to anyone else. You don't strike me as the sort of person who would have feelings for someone you weren't close to. And when I think about the way you treat me, compared to the way you treat everyone else – well, I couldn't know for sure, because you don't really have any other close friends and maybe the way that you treat me is just because we're friends, but sometimes it almost, almost seemed like you were flirting with me. Well, not flirting, exactly, because I can't imagine you flirting with anyone, but there was something. I thought there was something, anyway."

Sherlock cannot bring himself to speak. He cannot bring himself to shift or even to look up at John's face, let alone meet his eyes. He wishes the sofa would swallow him whole. He wishes he could go back in time and not open the door, or to go back further and not say anything while they were texting, or to go back further still and stop himself from ever falling this far.

After a moment, John says, "I stand by what I said when we were texting."

"That it's fine?" Sherlock says wryly. He cannot feel reassured by the words. Of course John would insist that it is fine. John is a good person, and John isn't going to judge Sherlock for liking boys. However, that doesn't mean that the fact that Sherlock likes John, specifically, won't mean that John starts to treat Sherlock differently. John says it's fine, but it's not, and Sherlock might lose the only friendship in his life that has ever been worth anything to him.

"Yes," John says, "but also that you could have anyone you wanted."

Sherlock wants to scoff, at first, because that's nonsense, until his mind catches up and he actually understands what that sentence means. From anyone else, it's nonsense. From the only person who Sherlock has ever felt this way for, it's something else entirely. His mind screeches to a halt, and finally, he draws his gaze away from his knees to look at John, staring at him with what he knows must be an awestruck expression on his face.

John is looking back at him with an expression on his face that is both familiar and strange. On the one hand, it's an expression he's seen on John's face before, but on the other hand, it's something he cannot immediately put a name to. There's something soft about the look, about the smile that plays on the corners of John's lips and the almost warm look in his eyes.

"There you are," John says. "Knew you'd get there eventually."

And it clicks in Sherlock's mind, and he is able to put a name to the look: it's _fond_.

Sherlock opens his mouth, preparing himself to speak even though he doesn't have the faintest idea of what he is going to say. John is the only person who has ever managed to do this to him – actually render him speechless. Sherlock always, always gets the last word, except when John is around, and when John does something like this.

His head feels like it's spinning. In his mind, he's having a conversation with John – albeit a disjointed one. _You never gave any indication. I thought you were not interested in that way. Are you interested in that way? You are, aren't you? I'm not reading this wrong; that is indeed what you meant. I'm flattered. No, that's not right, not flattered – well, yes, flattered, but also... What does this mean? What does this mean for us, for the state of our relationship? Is this a good idea? Are you sure you want this? Whatever this is? John._

"I haven't broken you, have I?" John says after a moment, and Sherlock realises that he hasn't said a single word of this out loud.

He closes his mouth, blinks, and then forces himself to restart. "So, in fact," he says slowly after a pause, "I'm your – that is to say, you like me? Specifically in the... not-friend sort of way?"

It sounds unbelievably childish coming from his own lips. It's probably one of the least intelligent things he has ever said in his life, and yet he feels the need to say it all the same.

John just smiles. "Yeah," he says. "That's exactly what I'm trying to say."

A part of Sherlock feels like this might be a dream. A part of him feels like he's definitely not hearing anything correctly. Maybe this is all in his Mind Palace. Maybe this is all a fantasy of what he would want to happen.

But, that being said, Sherlock does not think that he would even fantasise of something like this without being entirely certain that it is something that will never come to light.

John shifts, and then he reaches out and covers Sherlock's hand with his own. Immediately, all of Sherlock's attention is diverted to the touch. It's innocent, gentle. It's hardly anything new – John has touched his wrist before to get his attention – but this feels like something else entirely. It shouldn't be right for such an innocent touch to feel so intimate.

"Can I kiss you?" John asks quietly, and the words alone are enough to make Sherlock's breath catch in his throat. He doesn't trust his voice, so instead, he nods his head, and then John leans forward and kisses him.

For the first time in his life, Sherlock's mind goes completely and utterly blank. It's as though every door and every window around his Mind Palace has been thrown open, letting in beautiful, bright, blinding light that drowns out everything else. The kiss is gentle, and yet it leaves Sherlock's head spinning.

It only lasts for a couple of seconds, and then John is pulling away, and Sherlock realises that in those couple of seconds he had not responded. He had frozen at the contact, cataloguing the sensations but not returning it. He corrects that immediately by leaning forward and capturing John's lips again before John moves too far away, and this kiss is far better, because now Sherlock is actively participating. He doesn't know what he's doing, and the kiss is awkward and clumsy, and also the best thing Sherlock has ever felt in his life.

The kiss breaks when John's lips pull upwards into a smile against Sherlock's own, and then John lets out an almost giddy-sounding giggle that brings a smile to Sherlock's own lips. It's quite possibly the best sound that he has ever heard in his life.

They pull away, but not far. They're close enough for Sherlock to feel John's breath against his skin. It's almost too close for Sherlock to be able to see John clearly, but he can see the bright smile on John's face and the bright look in his eyes. John's palm is on Sherlock's cheek, cupping his jaw (Sherlock has no recollection of when it got there) and he gently strokes his thumb over Sherlock's cheekbone.

"For the cleverest person I know, you can be remarkably oblivious at times," John says, which makes Sherlock drop his gaze a little in embarrassment.

"You're an open book one moment and a complex puzzle the next," Sherlock says. "I never realised."

"Well," John says, "I'm glad that I'm capable of surprising even the great Sherlock Holmes."

"You'd be the only one who could," Sherlock says, and then he kisses away the next words that reach John's lips.


	23. The Creatures of the Night

**Author's Note:** Hi all! I apologise for the unintended hiatus. Being an adult is difficult. However, though I haven't managed to find time to post anything, I have managed to keep writing (I've currently drafted up to the 28th fic in this series), so I will try to keep to some sort of posting schedule for a little while.

Now, I do have a quick announcement to make. I currently have a total of 30 prompts. If you have sent any prompts up until today - 14th January 2018 - then it has been documented and will be posted. I am temporarily putting a cap on this story at this point - once I have written up to and including my 30th story, I will be taking a temporary break to work on a long fic (more on that later). If you have any other prompt ideas, do feel free to send them in, and I will either write them after the long fic or when I get writer's block and need to work on something else. Just be warned that it might be a bit later that I get to them.

Now, enjoy!

As always, a massive thank you to the amazing Becca (Ao3's LlamaWithAPen) for making sure my writing actually makes sense.

* * *

Prompt from ArchiveofOurOwn user Drag0nst0rm, who requested a first meeting where Sherlock is a vampire.

 **The Creatures of the Night**

The sun is setting below the horizon. The red-orange light casts a warm glow over the streets, but the air feels cold. Soon it will be dark. They are coming.

John watches from the window of his bedsit, gazing out into the quiet streets below. During the day, the streets are never this quiet, not in a city like London. People walk their dogs; workers make their way to and from offices and Tube stations; cars and cabs block the roads. Now, people rush to make it inside before it gets dark. Parents take their children's hands, leading them back inside, ignoring those who cry and whine because they were not done playing. They do not understand. They are too young, too naive; they still believe that they are invincible, that the stories they hear would never happen to them.

John is safe here, inside his bedsit. The only guest he has ever had over is his doctor. His lock on the door might not be the best, but that does not matter. They cannot enter uninvited. John is safe inside.

It wasn't like this before John joined the army and was deployed to Afghanistan. It wasn't like this when John was in school, or university. He used to stay out late with his friends; sometimes he would walk home after midnight. There was always the risk that he would be hurt at night, by people who were drunk or high or just predisposed to violence, but those threats were always entirely human.

John didn't see his first vampire until he had joined the army. They had invaded Afghanistan before they invaded London. He didn't realise that the invasion had started back home until after he had returned, invalided home due to a bullet wound to the shoulder and a limp without a physical cause. He spent weeks recovering in hospital. He spent weeks watching patients be rushed in, suffering from extreme blood loss.

It changed things in London. It changed the way people acted, the things people did. Vampires could not enter the sunlight, so people felt safe during the day, but at night, things were different. People stopped staying out late. Shops started closing earlier; people started working shorter hours so that they could get home before dark. If there was too much work to do, if people had to work an extra hour or so, they would end up sleeping in their offices. Even if the sun had only just set, it wasn't safe to head home.

The worst changes happened in the hospital. At first, they had continued in the way that they always had, letting patients in regardless of the hour. That was, until they made a mistake. It only happened once, but it was enough. They let a patient in after dark; they did not realise until it was too late that the patient was not human. Eight people were killed as a result.

So they stopped letting people in after dark. They stopped sending out paramedics to respond to night calls. It was awful, sickening, to think that if someone was hurt at night, they were forced to hold on until sunrise or they were simply left to die. Yet, it was a sacrifice that people were willing to make, because it was the only way they could ensure the safety of the paramedics and nurses and doctors and the other patients. They chose to prioritise the many over the few. It was their only choice – or that was what they chose to believe, so that the choice was easier to make.

The sun sinks below the horizon, casting a shadow over the street. The London that John once knew – always bustling with energy, loud even in the middle of the night – is gone. Now, the night is still.

John watches from the window, as he does at sunset every night. He does not know why he bothers. He knows that they are out there, even if he does not see them. They are always there, watching and waiting for someone careless enough to leave the safety of their homes.

There is a flicker of movement in the shadows. John leans closer to the window to see. He can just make it out in the shadows. It almost looks human, but John knows that it is not.

He watches as it moves through the streets. It sticks to the shadows, hiding, but John can see it every time it is forced to move beneath a street light. It moves with an odd sort of gracefulness.

When it steps into the light, John can make out some of its features. Pale skin, dark hair. Male, John thinks, but John cannot bring himself to consider the creature as a 'he'. It does not deserve to be given any sort of humanity, even in the way John thinks of it. It is not human. It is a monster.

The creature turns its head towards the window, and for a second, its eyes lock with John's.

John pulls the blinds shut tight.

OoO

John left work a little bit later than usual on Tuesday afternoon.

It was no more than ten minutes later, but it was enough for John to miss the Tube he usually takes. Maybe John would have made it if he had run for the station, but he can hardly do that when he limps and he relies on a cane just to walk. By the time he reached the station, he finds his Tube has already left; he caught the next one fifteen minutes later.

Fifteen minutes wasn't a long wait, of course, except when you take into consideration the fact that it is winter, and it is cold, and most importantly, the sun sets only shortly after four o'clock in the afternoon.

In the summer, the clinic stays open later, because the sun does not set until after eight in the evening. In the winter, however, everyone closes up early, to give themselves enough time to get home safe before sunset. Usually, John gives himself enough time; he is safely within his bedsit before it gets dark. Today, he has not given himself enough time. He sits on the Tube, drumming his fingers on his knees, and he knows he isn't going to make it home in time.

Maybe he should have caught a cab. Maybe, the moment he realised that he had missed his usual Tube, he should have exited the station and hailed a cab. It would have cost him more, yes, but it would have been better to pay than to lose his life. However, John knows that the chances of finding a cab at that time of afternoon would have been slim. Even if there had been one out there, the driver might not have been willing to drive John home, if it meant that the driver himself would not have had enough time to get to his own home before dark.

It is too late to worry now. The only thing that John can do is hope that the sunset is just that little bit later today, that he might have just enough time to get home.

He knows better than to really hold onto this sort of hope.

The Tube is almost empty. It must always be, at this time of day. Everyone else has already rushed home, having left work earlier or caught earlier transport. The handful of people who are on the Tube with John must be people who are going to get off soon or do not have to walk far from the station to get back to their homes. Or, perhaps, like John, they left it too late, and they know that they might not make it home tonight.

The Tube comes to a stop at John's station, and he rushes to his feet. Now, John is in control of the speed at which he travels. Given the time, he might very well need to try to run.

The station is quiet. John does not have to push his way through crowds of people. He hoists his bag over his shoulder and rushes up the stairs into the light.

Or, at least, into what's left of the light. It is dusk. The last of the sunlight sends a purple glow over the streets. It would be beautiful, if it weren't so dangerous. John cannot stop to appreciate the beauty of it.

He moves as quickly as he can manage.

As a teenager walking home at night, John knew to stick to the crowded streets and not take shortcuts through dark alleyways, because it was safer. Now, there is very little difference between the quiet alleyways and the main streets. John sticks to the main streets out of habit more than anything else, but it won't make a difference. If something happens, he doubts anyone will come to his rescue, even if they are close enough to hear him scream.

There's a sound behind him. It's only slight, but John is on high alert. He has always been hypervigilant, since he came back from Afghanistan. He cannot enter a room without almost instinctively taking in his surroundings. Within five seconds of entering, John has worked out if there is anything in the room that could be used as a weapon – either by John or anyone else – and any escape routes. He does this even in places like his therapist's office, or a cafe, even though he knows he is safe. Right now, however, he knows that he is _not_ safe, and it gives him even more of a reason to be hypervigilant.

John whirls around in the direction of the sound, but there is no sign of a person – or a creature – behind him. John cannot say for certain what the sound was. It could have been a footstep, but maybe it was just an animal, or a piece of rubbish blowing in the breeze. Maybe John is safe.

He does not let his guard down. He turns around and keeps walking, eager to get home before –

Again.

This time, there is no doubt in John's mind that he heard a footstep, and he knows better than to hope that it's another innocent human being out tonight.

He walks faster, wishing he had taken his gun with him to work. Of course, he couldn't really take a gun to the clinic, and he should not _want_ to take a gun to a clinic, but he would feel much safer with it pressed against the small of his back. If humans were the only threats to John's safety that were out this evening, he would be fine, because John's instincts are fast and he is capable of hand-to-hand combat. Against a vampire, however, he has no chance. Vampires are faster than he is. He would be dead before he could so much as throw a punch.

There's another sound, this time coupled with a shadow overheard. John turns his head and looks up in time to see a figure on the building above him. The creature is on the roof.

John breaks into a run. He's only a couple of minutes from home now; he has to make it. He does not want to die here, out in the street outside his bedsit.

Out of nowhere, a figure leaps in front of him, causing John to skid to a stop. White fangs shine in the vampire's mouth. The expression on the creature's face is bloodthirsty. It blocks John's path, stopping him from getting home, and though John's body tenses in preparation for an attack, his mind has already given up. There is no way he is going to survive this. It's over before it has even begun.

But then, before he can think, a second creature barrels into the first from the side, knocking it to the ground. There's no way a human could have moved that fast, so it has to be a second vampire. The two creatures fall to a ground in a heap, rolling around as they each try to pin the other down, to keep control of the situation. John does not stand around to watch the fight. He does not fancy being killed by the second vampire when the fight is over.

He sprints past the two fighting vampires as fast as he can manage and rushes to his front door. His keys are in his hand and ready to go. He shoves it into the lock, turns it, throws himself through the door and slams it shut behind him.

Safely inside his bedsit, John slumps back against the door, suddenly feeling drained of energy. His heart is pounding against his ribcage, and he feels like he can barely breathe, but he is safe. By some miracle, he is alive.

Another vampire saved his life. He doubts this was the vampire's intention; no doubt it was only a case of two predators fighting over their prey, and John would have been killed by whichever had won if he had stayed back to see the fight through to the end. All the same, John is relieved that he is alive. He is lucky that the second vampire turned up when it did.

He pushes himself up from his front door, and it's only as he straightens that he realises he doesn't have his cane with him. He had it when he left work, but he cannot remember taking it off the Tube.

There isn't as much as a hint of pain in his leg.

OoO

John wakes to the sound of screaming.

Such violent starts are, unfortunately, not uncommon. Ever since John returned from Afghanistan, his nights have been plagued with horrendous dreams. He dreams of screaming and gunfire, of getting shot, of failing to save his friends from bleeding to death before it is too late. Sometimes, he dreams of the bodies they found completely drained of blood, with no more than a bite mark or two on their skin. These dreams are the worst, because although John left the gunfire and the sand behind in Afghanistan, the monsters are still here in London.

Normally, when John wakes up, the screaming stops.

This time, it does not.

It's disorienting to be startled awake so suddenly. John lurches upright with such force that the world spins in the darkness. He takes a second to reorient himself, but he does not give himself long. The screaming has not stopped.

He drags himself free of the tangle of sheets that are restricting his movement, shoving them off his bed as he climbs free. He rushes for the window, throws open the blinds, and looks out into the street below – a street that, at this time of night, should be empty. It is not empty tonight. Tonight, below John's window, there is a woman. No, not a woman – a girl, a teenager.

She should not be out this late at night. She should know better. And yet, John cannot bring himself to turn a blind eye to the sounds from the street below. She is a child. She does not deserve to be hurt.

John acts without thinking. He does that a lot.

He grabs his gun from his bedside drawer, and he rushes out and into the street.

At first, he cannot see the girl who was rushing past his window moments before, and he fears he might be too late. The creature – for undoubtedly a creature was the cause of her screams – might have caught up to her, taken her far from here, far from where John could rescue her. However, then there is another scream, coming from an alleyway nearby, and John rushes towards it.

He does not waste his time trying to be quiet. Dealing with a vampire means that he will never have the element of surprise, no matter how hard he tries. Rather than trying to sneak, he needs to rush, to get there as quickly as he can before he is too late. He rounds the corner, gun held in front of his body, and there he can see her. The creature has caught her; its arm is wrapped around her torso, restricting her movements and preventing her from escaping. Its face is by her neck. Its hair shields the view from John, but John knows from the way that the woman's eyes roll back that it is biting her, drinking her blood. John does not know how much blood she has already lost.

He raises his gun and points it at the vampire's head. "Hey!" he yells to get the creature's attention, and its head snaps up towards him. There is blood on the woman's neck, dripping from a bite wound. There is also blood on the creature's chin.

The creature snarls, the sound animalistic, and it drops the woman carelessly onto the ground and disappears into the darkness, faster than John can blink.

John does not try to chase it. Instead, he rushes toward the woman, dropping to his knees beside her. One hand flies to the wound, pressing against it to stop the bleeding. It's not deep, he is relieved to find, but that does not mean she has not lost a lot of blood already. His other hand searches for a pulse, and there is a very brief moment of relief when he finds it. She is conscious, but she is weak, and out here they are sitting ducks.

John wishes he could call an ambulance, because there is only so much that he can do to help with the first aid equipment that he has at his bedsit. However, he knows better than to waste time trying. No one will come to their aid at this time of night. He needs to get the girl inside, to safety, and then he needs to find a way to keep her alive until sunrise.

"Can you stand?" he asks gently, already trying to put an arm around the girl's back to support her. She manages to nod, and weakly, with John's support, she gets to her feet.

Then there is movement – a sound behind them that makes John freeze. He gives the girl only a second to steady herself before he stops supporting her. In the same movement, he whirls around and raises the gun that is still in his hand, pointing it at the source of the noise behind them.

John is fast, but he isn't fast enough.

The vampire that made the noise behind him is not alone, and John does not realise this until it is too late. Even as John is levelling his gun, another of those creatures is rushing at him from behind. It knocks the gun from his hand, and he makes a grab for it, but too late. The second creature kicks the gun along the ground to the first, who puts its foot on the gun to stop John from retrieving it.

The girl behind John is still standing. Perhaps it's the adrenaline that has given her the strength she needs. John knows she must be terrified. She stands close to John. The second vampire, who is not guarding John's gun, is pacing in slow circles around them. These creatures are said to have far stronger senses than a human being. John knows it will be able to hear the way his heart is racing.

John already knows he isn't getting out of this alive. The idea of him managing to overpower two vampires and live to tell the tale is unimaginable. However, there is a small chance that he might be able to get the girl out of here. At least then he will have done something. One of them surviving is better than nothing.

He does not bother to whisper. There is no point – the vampires will hear either way. Instead, he looks over his shoulder at the girl and says, "Flat's across the street. Door's open." Then, before anyone else has time to react, he lunges for the gun.

It has the desired effect. John knew he had no chance of getting the gun, but for a second, he manages to get both of the vampires to focus on him. The vampire who had been pacing in slow circles around John and the girl dives after him, and it gives the girl her chance to escape. John cannot watch to see if she gets away safely. He can only hope that she does.

The vampire knocks John to the ground, and he rolls along the concrete. He doesn't even feel the pain, not with the adrenaline coursing through his veins. He scrambles to his feet, but he knows it is no use, because the vampire has knocked him further into the alleyway, closer to the wall. There is nowhere for John to go, nothing he can do to escape.

The vampire stands barely a metre in front of John, removing any chance of John being able to get past and run for safety. He hopes the girl is alive. He hopes she can make it through the night, until someone can help her.

The vampire snarls, lips curling back to reveal sharp, pointed fangs, and John knows that it's over.

But it's not.

Faster than John can process, two pale hands come from behind the vampire, resting on either side of its face. They turn, sharply, and there's a sickening _crack_ , and the vampire crumples to the ground. For a moment, John cannot tear his eyes away from the form on the ground, twisted and distorted in a way a body should not be, but then he hears a snarl. The newcomer – another vampire – has gone for the remaining vampire as well. John can barely follow the fight, it moves so fast before his eyes. He can hear hisses and snarls and other such animalistic noises, and the vampire and its attacker tumble, knocking one another to the ground and then flying back to their feet. It's somehow both graceful and brutal, the two bodies seeming almost weightless as they near-effortlessly return to their feet.

John gaze flickers to the ground, and he sees his gun, abandoned by the vampire in the fight. He glances once more at the two creatures, and then rushes for the gun.

Behind him, John hears a thump, which he can only imagine is the sound of a body hitting the ground. The snarls have stopped. John does not know who won, who is still standing. He grabs the gun and turns around, raising it in front of him in the same movement.

The creature standing before John is a vampire, but not one of the two who had been after John and the girl before. This vampire is taller, paler – if that's even possible for a vampire. Perhaps it's the contrast between his pale skin and the dark mop of curls on its head. It looks vaguely familiar. John thinks he must have seen it before. He aims his gun at the creature's heart.

The vampire does not look threatened, even with a weapon pointed directly at him. If anything, it looks bored. Its gaze flickers to the gun, and it drawls, "Oh, please. Put the gun down. Isn't it obvious that I'm on your side?"

The voice is surprisingly human. John had never considered the possibility that vampires could talk, or otherwise make sounds other than the hisses and snarls that John has heard when they fight. He does not lower the gun.

"I didn't think vampires took sides with anyone but their own kind," he says.

"Do not lump me in with the rest of my kind," says the vampire. "The fact that I just saved your life – for the second time, might I add – should be enough to put your tiny mind at ease."

"Second time?" John repeats, and the vampire lets out something that might be a sound of amusement, or perhaps a scoff.

"Did you think it was by pure chance that you managed to return to your little flat unharmed the last time you decided it was a good idea to take a walk out in the streets after dark?"

John blinks in surprise. He remembers walking home, or running home, from the Tube station that evening. He remembers the sound of the fight behind him, which had given him the precious moment he needed to get to safety. If this vampire is telling the truth, then John owes the creature his life, twice over.

He finds he is not reassured by the discovery. Instead, he asks, "How do I know you didn't just save my life so you could kill me yourself?"

The vampire sighs. "Trust issues," it mutters, seemingly more to itself than to John. "Should have figured as much." Louder, it says, "If I wanted you dead, then I assure you, you would already be dead. If I intended to cause you any sort of harm, or to feed from you, I'd have disarmed you by now. Really, it's quaint that you think a gun is enough to protect you." A beat, and then it looks towards the two fallen bodies of the other vampires, before returning its gaze to John. "A snapped neck is not enough to kill a vampire. I suggest you start moving before these two wake up."

John hesitates, but then he lowers his gun. The vampire does not take advantage of this to attack John.

He looks back at the other two vampires, collapsed on the ground. Their necks are twisted into unnatural positions. If they were human, there would be no question that they were dead. John cannot imagine what it will look like when they wake up. He does not want to wait around to see it.

He turns his attention back to the other vampire. "Why did you do that?" he asks. "Save us? Won't you have just painted a target on your own back now?"

"Probably," the vampire says, "but it's hardly as though I've gotten on with the rest of my kind previously. And, unlike you, I stand a chance of fighting my own kind off. Now..."

John looks back at the other two vampires, as though he expects to see them moving. When he looks up again, the other vampire – the one who John owes his life – is gone.

He does not waste time waiting around. He turns, and he makes his way swiftly through the street to his bedsit.

He pulls open the door, steps inside and closes it behind him, shutting himself in the safety of his own home once more.

When he turns, he discovers that he is not the only person in his bedsit. John's heart leaps into his chest, his body immediately preparing for another fight, but it only takes him a second to realise that the person is not a vampire, or a threat. It's the girl. She made it to safety, to his bedsit. She is shaking, and staring at John with wide eyes.

"You're alive," she breathes, and then John sees her eyes roll back. Perhaps it's the blood loss, or simply the shock. John steps forward and catches her before she hits the floor.

OoO

John manages to keep the girl stable, and alive, until sunrise. She drifts in and out of consciousness, and there are several times when John fears she will not make it, but somehow, by some miracle, she pulls through. John calls an ambulance at the crack of dawn, and the moment sunlight is shining over London, they come. They load the girl into the ambulance, and John insists that he come along, partially because he is a doctor and he might be able to help, and partially because he has been with this girl all night, and even though she is a complete stranger to him, he wants to see that she is okay.

He waits in the waiting room while they rush her in for an emergency blood transfusion, and he can only hope that he did enough, keeping her stable until she could have proper medical attention. She might be lucky. The fact that she was conscious when John first found her is a good sign. She can't have lost that much blood.

She does pull through, by some miracle. The nurse comes down to see him when they have managed to stabilise her, to let John know that she will be all right, and that he probably saved her life.

The name she gives is Kitty Winters. As far as they can gather, she's an orphan. She has no one else, no parent or next-of-kin who she can call. It makes John's heart ache for her. She's so young, and she's on her own, with no one to support her after such a traumatic ordeal. John doesn't want her to feel like she's alone, and he cannot help but be invested in her life now, after staying up for half the night trying to keep her alive. So, when the nurse tells him that, though she might not be conscious, he can go up and see her, he decides to do just that.

She is awake when he reaches her room, but she's weak, clearly exhausted. Still, when John steps through the door, a small smile comes over her face. "Hi," she says quietly.

"Hey," John says. "How are you feeling?"

"Okay," Kitty says, which John knows means that she's not actually feeling okay at all – how could she, after what she's just been through? – but she's tough enough to try to hide it. She continues, "The doctor said you saved my life."

John waves the statement away with a dismissive hand gesture. "The doctor saved your life. I was just able to get you to them."

Kitty shakes her head a little. "You saved me," she says with certainty. "You didn't have to leave your flat, where you were safe, but you did. Why?"

"I couldn't just let you die," John says. After a moment's hesitation, he takes a seat on the edge of her bed. "Why were you out last night? Surely you know how dangerous that is."

Kitty looks down at the bedsheets that are drawn up over her lap. "It wasn't safe for me inside, either," she says, and John knows that the look on her face says that he should not push her any further than that.

They continue to make conversation for around half an hour – ranging from conversations about Kitty's background (though John notices that she definitely seems to be withholding information, and he doesn't try to push her) to the more heavy conversations about what had actually happened last night. Kitty asks how John survived, and John cannot give her an easy answer. He survived because a vampire saved his life. He can hardly believe that himself.

After a while, John notices that her eyes are beginning to droop, and he decides that he should let her sleep. She's too tired to even argue. She will be in hospital for a few days while they monitor her condition – after all, few people are lucky enough to survive a vampire attack, so they hardly know what to expect – and John promises that he will come and visit her when he can. If she truly does not have any family or friends here, the least John can do is help to make her feel less alone.

He steps out of her hospital room and goes to make his to the elevator when –

"John? John Watson?"

He turns around at the sound of his name, and though it takes him a second, he recognises the man who has spoken. "Mike!" he says in surprise. He hasn't seen Mike Stamford in ages – not since he was here studying to become a doctor. It feels like another lifetime. He clasps Mike's extended hand with a smile. "How have you been?"

"Good, good," says Mike. "How are you? I didn't know you were back in London. I thought you were off somewhere getting shot at."

"I got shot," John says, and then he clears his throat and changes the subject quickly. "What are you doing nowadays?"

"Teaching, actually," says Mike. "Bright young things like we used to be. Bit of a different world now, isn't it, with the vampire business."

"You're telling me."

Mike pulls up his sleeve to check the time on his wristwatch. "I have some time before my next class. Fancy a coffee?"

Given that John managed no more than a couple of hours of sleep last night before he was awoken by the sound of Kitty screaming, coffee sounds fantastic. "Love to," John says, and Mike beams.

"Great. Left my coat in the lab – come down with me?"

They make their way through the hospital to the lab. It's strange for John to enter the teaching part of the hospital, now. In some ways, it's familiar, because he remembers spending hours here as a student, studying through the night. Yet, it's so different now – not just because of the vampires, and the way the world has changed because of them, but also because of how far technology has come in a relatively short period of time. It's strange how quickly the world develops.

They step into the lab, and Mike takes a moment to pack up his things before saying, "I might just pop to the loo – mind waiting a moment?"

John shakes his head, and Mike steps out of the door. In the otherwise empty lab, John looks over the equipment, reminiscing about times long past. He remembers a few nights spent in labs just like these, frantically trying to finish experiments and write up assignments. He wonders what it's like for students nowadays. If they stay late to finish an assignment, they can't leave the lab before dawn. He wonders if they just spend nights in the lab, because they could not get out of there before sunset, or if students are more inclined to study at home now, to finish their work early so that they can get home safe.

The door creaks open behind John.

"That was fast," John says, and he turns around.

The person behind John is not Mike.

Nor is it human.

Instinctively, John stumbles a few steps backwards, but he knows it to be useless. He can only put so much distance between himself and the vampire in the lab, and if the vampire wants him dead, he'll be dead regardless of whether he is directly in front of the creature or on the opposite side of the room.

The vampire in question is the same one from last night – the one who had saved John's life. It has the same bored expression on its face when John steps backwards. Maybe boredom is its default expression. It says, "Oh, please. Did we not conclude last night that I have no intention of harming you?"

"How the Hell did you get in here?" John asks. "I thought you couldn't enter without permission."

"I have permission," the vampire says. "One of the pathologists here let me in."

"Why?"

"Because I asked her to."

"Why?" John asks. "What does a vampire want with a hospital?" He pauses, and then he says, "This isn't where you get blood from, is it?"

"Would you rather I get it from living humans?" the vampire asks. "I'd have thought that you would see that the idea of me getting blood that has already been donated would be preferable to me searching for an unsuspecting human who was careless enough to leave home at night. Regardless, my access to the blood in this hospital is not the only reason why I've been allowed in here."

"Then why?"

"It's a place for me to stay, out of the sunlight during the day. Plus, it gives me access to any equipment I might need."

John frowns. "Equipment?"

"Microscopes. Computers. Chemicals."

"What does a vampire need with all of that?"

"I need some way to pass the time during the day," the vampire says. He then changes the topic before John can continue with this line of questioning. "How's the girl?" he asks.

John hesitates, but decides to answer honestly. "Stable," he says. "It looks like she'll pull through." He pauses for a moment, and then asks, "She won't turn into a vampire, will she?"

"Of course not," the vampire says, his tone of voice telling John that that was probably a stupid question. John can't be blamed for asking stupid questions; no one knows that much about vampire biology. How can they? Anyone who gets close enough to one usually ends up dead. The vampire continues, "It's not enough to merely drink a human's blood to turn them. The human needs to drink from the vampire as well to complete the cycle. No, the venom will have already left her system by now, and she will make a full recovery, as long as she doesn't die of blood loss first."

John is fairly certain she won't die of blood loss now. "Okay," he says. "Good." After a beat, he asks, "Why did you do that? Save us?"

"I could ask you the same thing," the vampire says. "Why did you leave the safety of your own home to save her?"

John shrugs his shoulders. There isn't a simple answer for that. It was not like he spent time making a decision; it was almost as though he acted on instinct. One moment he was inside his flat, and the next, he was out on the street, searching for the source of the scream. He says, "I couldn't just let her die."

"And yet you question my motives," says the vampire, "rather than assuming that they might be the same as yours."

"Well, yeah," John says. "I mean... she's human. We're human. Why would a vampire save humans?"

"It's ignorant to assume that we are all the same," the vampire says. "We were all humans once. There is as much variation within my kind as there is within your own."

"But because of your kind, my kind cannot leave the house at night anymore," John points out. "You might be the exception to the rule, but you kill humans far more than humans kill each other."

"Do we?" the vampire asks. "You were a soldier. A military doctor, if I'm not mistake. All that death and destruction that you witnessed – was that not the result of humans killing other humans?"

John blinks. "How do you know I was a military doctor?"

"The way you hold yourself screams military; the fact that you managed to keep the girl alive last night says you have had medical training. Afghanistan, I'd assume."

"How did you know _that_?"

The vampire's lips pull upwards into a smile, just enough for John to see a flash of fangs. "Consider it a lucky guess," he says – and John finds he cannot continue to think of the creature as an 'it', after last night. The vampire then tips his head to the side, listening – to what, John cannot say. After a beat, the vampire says, "Enjoy the sunlight, Doctor," and then he rushes from the room, the movement so fast it is almost as though he disappeared into thin air.

"Wait—" John says, but the vampire is already gone.

A second later, the door swings open again, and Mike steps back into the room. "Who were you talking to?" he asks, picking up his coat from where he left it on the back of a nearby chair.

John looks towards the door as it swings shut after Mike. "No one," he says.

OoO

John sits by his window, gazing out into the darkened street below. He can feel the pressure of his gun against the small of his back, where it is tucked into his waistband. There is something reassuring about having it there, even though he knows it might not be enough to protect him.

He has done this for days now; sitting by the window after dusk, searching for the sign of movement from not just any vampire, but the one vampire he wants to see. He has looked towards the shadows, fallen asleep by the window after hours of waiting without seeing what he wants to see. Tonight, this ends. He has a plan.

It's a risk. It's insane. But the idea sparked in John's mind, and he hasn't been able to dismiss the thought since.

It might not work, John knows, but he has a good feeling about it nonetheless. He thinks he's read the situation right.

He hopes he has read the situation right.

He takes a deep breath to compose himself, prepare himself, and then he makes his way to the front door, pushes the door open and steps outside.

The night is clear tonight. John can see stars above his head. It's beautiful, and it makes him miss the good old days of being able to go out at night like this. He cannot see stars from his own window. Many people won't be able to see stars anymore.

He leaves the door open behind him, so that he has an easy escape route. The last thing he needs is to be wasting time fiddling with keys and a doorknob. It's hardly as though anyone is going to enter through the open door – vampires cannot, and humans would not be out so late at night. John would be the only person crazy enough to do something like this.

He wonders what his therapist might say if she knew what he was doing tonight.

He pointedly does not think about it.

He pulls his gun from the waistband of his trousers, because he feels safer with it in his hands. He takes a few steps away from the door. He strains his ears for any sound – movement, footsteps, a rustle of clothing, anything. If this goes wrong, then he isn't going to have a great deal of warning. He needs to be on high alert at all times.

He doesn't move far from his bedsit. Leaving the door open to give himself an escape route is pointless if he cannot get back there quickly. He stands in the middle of the street, only a few metres from his door, and he waits, quiet, patient, for...

"Do you have a death wish?"

John whirls around at the noise, but he recognises the voice and he knows not to raise his gun. The vampire standing behind John is exactly the one John had been hoping to see tonight. He is staring at John with an expression of bemused incredulity on his face.

The vampire continues, "Leaving the safety of your home to protect a young woman is one thing. This is pure idiocy. There is no reason for you to be out here tonight."

"I know that," John says, feeling strangely calm, "but I knew I was safe."

"How could you possibly be safe? You know as well as I do how dangerous vampires can be. You know they will not hesitate to drain you dry at the first opportunity."

"I know," John says again, "but I also knew that you wouldn't let that happen."

The vampire blinks, and for a moment, he is too stunned to speak.

John continues, "You've been protecting me. The night I was walking home from the Tube station, the night that Kitty got attacked, and even tonight, you're here within minutes of me stepping outside. Why?"

The vampire tilts his head to the side. He seems to be considering his answer. After a moment, he says, "You're interesting."

John scoffs. "I'm hardly interesting."

"I beg to differ." He pauses, looks over his shoulder briefly, and then says, "I suggest you get inside."

John does not move. "If I turn around, you'll disappear again, won't you?"

"Your stubbornness will be the death of you."

"I'll go inside if you stay outside my door. I'm not done talking to you."

The vampire purses his lips, looking frustrated, but then he must hear something that is too quiet for John's human senses, because he glances over his shoulder and says, "Fine, but hurry up."

"Good," John says, and then he turns and returns to his bedsit. He steps through the doorway, but he does not close the door behind him. When he turns around, he is pleased to see that the vampire has not broken his promise. He stands on the step outside John's bedsit.

"Okay," John says, once he's safely inside. "I've hardly seen you around for a couple of weeks."

"I have more interesting things to do than walk up and down the same street every single night. If my time outdoors is limited, I am going to make the most of it."

"And yet, you were close enough to notice as soon as I stepped outside."

The vampire averts his gaze briefly, which makes John grin.

John continues, "Why are you protecting me?"

"Did I not already answer that question?"

"I'm not sure I believe your answer. Do you protect anyone you find interesting?"

"I find few people interesting."

John's lips pull upwards slightly. "Just me, then. Don't I feel special."

The vampire lets out a frustrated huff.

John continues, "It almost feels like you might be obsessed with me."

"Don't give yourself too much credit."

"I'm not."

"And don't make me regret saving your life."

John grins, because this conversation is essentially confirming what he already believed. The vampire before John has saved John's life more than once because the vampire, in one way or another, likes him.

For months, John had believed that these creatures were completely lacking of humanity. He had not even believed they were capable of speech, beyond the screeches and cries that John heard some times at night back in Afghanistan. In his head, the creatures were animalistic. They lacked the ability to think consciously, to have feelings, to care. He had believed them to be nothing more than mindless, blood-sucking monsters.

The vampire before him was either a major exception to the norm or, more likely, John had been wrong. This vampire, despite the unnaturally pale skin and the flash of fangs that John catches every time the vampire smiles, seems so human. He has emotions, has the ability to care, to be fond of someone. Fondness, and love, had always seemed to John to be such a distinctly human emotion.

"Seriously though," John says. "Thank you for saving my life. More than once."

"Do not expect me to continue to do so if you do reckless things such as leaving your flat at night simply to talk to me."

"I didn't know how else to get in touch with you. I'd tried waiting until you turned up outside my flat, but you were never there."

"So you risked your life simply to say hello."

"As I said, I knew I was safe."

The vampire stares at him for a moment, and then he shakes his head. "There's a fine line between bravery and stupidity, you realise."

"I know that," John says, and he leans against his doorframe. "I don't even know your name. You've saved my life, and we don't know the first thing about each other."

"Well, that's not entirely true," the vampire says. "As I've pointed out previously, I know you were an army doctor in Afghanistan. I know that you were invalided home as a result of an injury – your left shoulder, I'd assume. You also had a limp when you first returned, but that disappeared rather abruptly the first time I saved your life, so it must have been psychosomatic. I know you studied in St Bart's with Mike Stamford, I know you currently work at a surgery in central London – and I can assume you must find that utterly tedious, compared to the thrill of Afghanistan. That's a start, don't you think?"

John stares. He had been startled when the vampire had first pointed out that John was an army doctor, but now he feels even more awestruck. "How did you know all that?" he asks, and the vampire grins, baring white fangs.

"I observed," He says, and then he takes a step away from the doorframe. "Have a nice night, Doctor."

"Wait," John says before the vampire can disappear into the night. "You might know all these things about me, but I can't say the same about you. At least tell me your name."

"Sherlock Holmes," says the vampire, and then he is gone.

OoO

It was bound to happen eventually.

The vampires invaded London within the last few years. It was recent. Almost everyone in London now will be able to remember the good old days pre-invasion, when it was safe to go outside at night and there was no supernatural reason to fear for one's own life. It was only a matter of time before someone decides that enough is enough.

John wakes to the sound of yelling and of gunfire – once again, the sort of sound that does not stop when John opens his eyes. He thinks at first that someone has been attacked, that someone has been careless enough to leave the safety of their homes once more. However, as John's mind properly wakes up, he realises that this explanation does not make sense. He can hear gunfire. What need would a vampire have to kill someone using a gun?

Groggy and disoriented, John stumbles out of bed and to the window. What he sees immediately wakes him up, and sends a twisted sensation of horror flooding through his body.

He was right in believing that someone had been attacked. However, it just was not the way he thought. In the street below, there is a man with a gun – a human, presumably, because vampires have no need for such weapons. The gun is pointed at a figure in the street, and John immediately recognises that it is Sherlock.

It's hard to make out from the window, but it looks like Sherlock is clutching his arm, perhaps holding onto an injury. John cannot see any signs of blood, but maybe that's because he's not close enough, because it's too dark. He can see Sherlock trying to move through the streets, and he is moving fast – faster than the man with the weapon – but not as fast as John has seen him move, and not fast enough to outrun a bullet.

He sees Sherlock round the corner, and John rushes for another window in his bedsit to get a better view, but his windows are facing in the wrong direction and he cannot see where Sherlock has gone. He hopes that maybe Sherlock has managed to find shelter somewhere, hidden from the man with the gun. But then there is another gunshot, ringing out in the street below, and John knows that the man would not fire a gun without something to point it at.

He has to do something. He cannot turn a blind eye to this. Perhaps he is the only one who would do so; anyone else might hear the gunfire and think it was about time that they fought back. John cannot be one of those people. He cannot let Sherlock die.

Can Sherlock die? Can a vampire die? John isn't sure. He decides now isn't the time to think about that.

He has to do something. John owes Sherlock his life, more than once. Now it is time that he repays the favour.

He can't go out the front door. There's too much to risk. There could be other vampires out there, who take advantage of John's distraction. The person with the gun, as well, could be just as dangerous. There could be consequences for taking a vampire's side.

Instead, he moves to the back window– the window near the fire escape – and he pulls it open. He cannot see anything in the darkened street below, but he takes a chance. He's pretty sure vampires are supposed to have good hearing. "Sherlock," he hisses. "Sherlock."

There is movement in the shadows below, and then John sees Sherlock step out of the darkness. He is still clutching his arm.

Sherlock does not need an explanation or direction. He jumps and he grabs the fire escape ladder above his head with the arm he was not clutching. He pulls it down to his level – which is easy, given how tall he is – and he immediately scampers up to the window. When he reaches the top, he looks over his shoulder, perhaps because he is expecting to see the man with the gun behind him.

John pushes the window open wider and says, "Come inside, quick."

For a split second, Sherlock stares at him with a startled expression on his face, but then there is a yell from the streets below, and Sherlock does not need telling twice. John takes a step back to clear the way, and Sherlock grabs onto the windowsill and hoists himself through the window, falling to the floor of John's bedsit.

Sherlock does not stay down for long, however. He immediately scampers to his feet, hand returning to clutch at the same arm that he had been holding before. John, meanwhile, closes the window, and then the blinds, blocking the view from outside and locking them both into the safety of John's bedsit.

When he turns around again, Sherlock is staring at him like John has two heads.

"What?" John asks.

"You invited me in," Sherlock says.

"Yes, that was the idea."

Sherlock tilts his head to the side. "You do realise that there is no way to take back that invitation now, yes? There is nothing to stop me from coming into your bedsit whenever I please."

"Are you going to kill me in my sleep?" John asks, which makes a confused expression come over Sherlock's face.

"I wasn't planning on it, no."

"Then you're welcome to come in whenever you please."

Sherlock, it seems, doesn't have a response to that.

In the moment of silence that follows, John's gaze falls to Sherlock's arm, where he is still clutching at it. John cannot see any blood, but the way Sherlock is holding it makes it seem like he is in pain. John asks, "What happened to your arm?"

Sherlock looks down at it, and then he pulls his hand away. John can see that something has torn through the sleeve of Sherlock's clothing and lodged itself into his skin. Sherlock says, "Wooden bullets. I cannot heal around them."

John takes a step closer to get a better look, and then asks, "Will it heal if you get the bullet out?"

Sherlock nods his head. "I presume so. Granted, I've never had a wood injury before, but that's my understanding nonetheless."

"Okay," John says. "I'll go get my first aid kit, and we can see if we can get the bullet out."

The same confused expression returns to Sherlock's face. "You're going to help me?" he asks.

"Why is that a surprise to you at this point? I'm fairly certain you don't have any vampire doctors you can go to, and human doctors might not be so likely to treat you like a normal patient."

Sherlock's gaze flickers between John's eyes, like he's trying to read something there. After a moment, he says, "You're a very strange human."

The words make John's lips pull upwards into a smile. "And you're a very strange vampire," he says, and he thinks he sees the ghost of a smile pull over Sherlock's lips in return.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** If you enjoyed my vampire Sherlock, please check out _An Unusual Association_ \- it's a different universe to this one, but it does star vampire Sherlock, and also a werewolf John. The aforementioned long fic that I will be working on after this series will be an AUA sequel.


	24. Detention

**Author's Note** : A million thanks to my beautiful beta, Becca (Ao3's LlamaWithAPen). Side note: please go read her fic, _Deducing Daisies_.

* * *

This fic combines two prompts: one from user joycelyn. o. ting (who's username this website will not allow without the spaces): _one where they are still children? Below 15?_ ; and one from user Morskijez: _how about if they met as school kids on detention?_

 **Detention**

The detention slip that John's teacher hands to John one Tuesday after lunch is the most terrifying thing that John has ever seen in his life.

John is not easily scared. In fact, John is brave. He has even watched scary movies on television at night, even though the warnings say that he is too young. However, being handed a detention slip is enough to make John's blood run cold in his veins. John has never received a detention before.

The scariest part about the note is not the fact that it is a detention slip, per se. The scariest part isn't even the explanation of why John has been given detention. The scariest part is the tick box down the bottom. "Parents/carers contacted", it says. The box next to 'Yes' has been ticked. There's only one thing that could mean: John's father has been called and informed that John has been sent to detention.

John would rather endure a whole week's worth of detentions – would rather lose all of his afternoon free time – than come home to see his father tonight, after his father has received word that John punched a boy and got detention for it. John's father will be angry. In fact, he will be furious.

John doesn't deserve this. He's a goody-two-shoes. He sits quietly in class, he listens to his teachers, and he does his work. He isn't loud or disruptive, like some of the other boys who sit at the back. He doesn't draw rude pictures in the margins of his notebooks, or say mean things to the other kids, or chew gum and stick it under his desk. John is well-behaved. He does not deserve a detention.

Yes, John did punch a boy in the face. He won't deny that. He can't deny it, given that people saw it happen. However, he had good reason. He wouldn't have done it if there had been another option. The boy who John had punched had been pulling on Molly's pigtails, and it was making her cry. He wasn't listening to her when she asked him to stop, and he did not listen to John when John told him to stop. Punching him was the only remaining option. It was the only way he could make the boy stop and leave Molly alone. The boy deserved it.

It was just one punch; that was all. Yet, John is strong, and the punch was enough to leave the boy with a bloody nose. It caused him to run to the teachers, and of course, the teachers did not see things from John's point of view. Giving someone a bloody nose, as far as the teachers were concerned, was far worse than pulling on someone's pigtails. So, John is the one who got a detention slip telling him to go to room 221B after class, and Molly's bully is the one who got told that pulling on a girl's pigtails is not very nice, and then got sent home with an ice pack pressed to his swollen face.

It's not fair.

When the bell rings that afternoon to signal the end of the day, John's classmates gather up their belongings with excitement, ready to go home and play video games or play sports or just enjoy not having to sit in a classroom for a few hours. John, however, gathers up his belongings with a sense of dread pooling into the pit of his stomach. It's dread more so about what happens when he leaves detention this afternoon than the hour that he has to spend in detention itself, but nothing about the detention hour is particularly desirable to him either.

He walks down the hall until he reaches room 221B, and he peers in through the small window on the door. Some of the other kids who have also been given detention that day are already there. They are not like him. They are not the kind of kids who sit at the front of the class and raise their hands to answer questions like John does. Some of the kids in the detention room lean back on their chairs so that only two legs are on the floor, even though they might fall and break their necks. Some throw things at the ceiling fan – pencils, paper balls, paper aeroplanes. Even standing outside the door, John can tell that the room is loud. Surely detention should be quieter. Shouldn't the teacher be telling them to be quiet?

John pushes open the door to step inside, and immediately, he realises why the teacher is not telling them to be quiet. The teacher is not there. There is no sign of any teacher or any other adult anywhere – not at the front of the room, nor weaving through the desks. There is no one around anywhere to tell the children to stop being disruptive.

This does not make sense to John. He's no expert, but he is pretty sure there is supposed to be a teacher in a detention classroom. Otherwise, what would be the point of detention, if it meant it was nothing more than an hour where students could sit in a classroom and throw things and do as they please? It does not seem to be a particularly good punishment.

"You might as well take a seat," drawls a voice. When John looks towards the source, he sees a boy about his age, with pale skin and dark, curly hair. Like many of the other kids, his feet are propped up on his desk, and his chair is tilted back. He is, however, slightly more well-behaved than the other kids, because he is not throwing anything. The boy continues, "Mr Thomas is always late."

John hesitates, but then a paper aeroplane narrowly misses his head, and he quickly sinks into the empty chair beside the curly-haired boy before he can lose an eye. He slides down low so that he is not an easy target for any of the projectiles. "If Mr Thomas is late," he asks, "why haven't people just left?"

The curly-haired boy looks at John out of the corner of his eye. "Because everyone knows he will turn up eventually. He always does. He'll see who isn't here, and they'll have to come back for detention another day. If you're interested in sneaking out, I suggest you wait until he arrives and takes your detention slip first – then you'll be more likely to get away with it."

"I wasn't going to sneak out," John says, surprised that the boy would even suggest it.

"Really?" the curly-haired boy asks, turning his head to John to look him over briefly. "I would, if it were my first time here – no reputation to make people suspicious of you. In fact, the only reason I'm not planning to escape today is because I escaped successfully a few weeks ago, and I don't want to push my luck and give away my methods."

"How did you escape last time?"

The boy gestures towards the door. "I had a network of sorts – a group of kids who caused commotion outside. They distracted Mr Thomas, and I sneaked out the window while he wasn't looking. It was easy, really, but I can't risk doing it again so soon – Mr Thomas might realise that there is a pattern, and might connect the commotion outside with me. I'd rather save it for a time when I really do need to escape."

"How many times have you been here?" John asks, because the way the curly-haired boy talks makes it seem like not only is this not his first time here, but also that he expects it won't be his last.

The curly-haired boy shrugs his shoulders. "Only a dozen or so," he says.

"A dozen?"

"Twelve."

John rolls his eyes. "I know what a dozen is, I'm not stupid. I mean, you've really been here a dozen times?"

The curly-haired boy looks to John again, gaze flickering up and down John's seated form. "Well, we can't all be goody-two-shoes who would only ever get sent to detention for a very good reason."

John frowns. He thinks for a moment that the curly-haired boy has read his detention slip and has leapt to the conclusion that punching the boy was a 'very good reason', but when John looks down, he sees that his slip is face-down on the table. The boy couldn't have read it. He looks back up again. "How did you know that?" he asks.

"Hm?"

"How did you know that I'm only here for a good reason?"

The boy cocks an eyebrow, looking more amused than anything else. "Well, it's obvious, isn't it?" he says, but John shakes his head, because it isn't obvious to him. The boy continues, "Your knuckles are bruised. Not a lot, which means it wasn't a major fight, but you definitely punched someone. You've never been to detention before - I've never seen you here before, and aside from that, you stick out like a sore thumb. You clearly don't belong. That means you don't usually punch people. I'd say it's safe to guess you had a good reason for doing so today. In other words, it was the right thing to do." A pause, and then he finishes, "That, and I heard Molly Hooper talking today about how she was being bullied, but one of the boys in her class saved her and then got detention for it. It's not difficult to work out that that boy in her class is you."

It sounds obvious when the curly-haired boy finishes explaining it, but John knows that he could have never worked anything like out on his own. It's like the boy beside him has psychic powers and read his mind. A part of John thinks that maybe he did. "Wow," John says at last. "That's amazing." After a beat, he asks, "Is Molly okay?"

"I assume so," says the curly-haired boy, and then he looks down pointedly at John's hands. "I think her bully ended up in a worse-off state than she did."

John glances down at his knuckles and finds that he does not feel guilty at all.

He looks back at the curly-haired boy after a moment, and he looks over him in the hopes that he might be able to do what the boy just did, to magically work out why this boy is here. He very quickly realises that he hasn't got the faintest idea what kind of thing he should even be looking for, and he gives up after little time. "Why are you here, then?" he asks.

The curly-haired boy leans back in his chair again. "I started a small fire in my science classroom," he says.

John blinks. "On purpose?"

The curly-haired boy gives him an exasperated look. "Of course not."

"Then why are you in trouble? If it was an accident, shouldn't they understand?"

The curly-haired boy's lips pull upwards into a smirk. "Well," he says, "the experiment that caused it was not one that I was supposed to be doing."

"Why were you doing an experiment?"

The boy shrugs. "I was bored. It would have been fine if I hadn't made a minor mistake – it won't happen again." He pauses for a moment, looking around the classroom, and then he says, "I'm not sure why they keep bothering sending me to detention, really. Surely they know it's not going to stop me from doing my own experiments in class. It hasn't worked the last five times."

"Have the last five times all been because you started a fire?" John asks.

"Not necessarily," the boy says with a shake of his head. "But they've all been because of something to do with science. My science teacher is the only one who has ever bothered to give me detention. She doesn't like me."

"Why?"

"Probably because I start fires in her classroom."

John laughs at the response, but before he has the chance to say anything else, the door to the classroom opens. The room falls silent immediately. Kids rush back to their chairs; paper planes flutter to the floor without anyone to catch them. It's striking how quickly the room goes from loud and bustling with energy to quiet enough to hear a pin drop.

The teacher – Mr Thomas, according to the curly-haired boy; not a teacher that John recognises – shuts the door behind him. John sees his eyes scan the room, as though he is checking who is there and who is not. John does not know how the boy beside him could have escaped last time like he said. Surely even if there had been a distraction, the teacher would have noticed when he looked back to the classroom that there was one empty desk that hadn't been there before.

"Detention slip," Mr Thomas says, his voice cold, holding his hand out to John. John hurriedly picks up the note from his desk to hand it over. He feels nervous and uncomfortable as he does so. John has never been in trouble before. Teachers are usually happier when they talk to John. Usually, they smile at him. Mr Thomas, on the other hand, doesn't even meet John's eyes. He takes the detention slip, and then nods once and puts it into his folder.

"Thank you, John," he says, but his tone of voice does not sound like he is actually thanking John at all. He steps over to the next desk, where the curly-haired boy is sitting, and when the boy hands over the detention slip, Mr Thomas reads it and then looks up. "Another fire, Sherlock?" he asks.

"The last one wasn't a fire," the boy says. "It was an explosion."

The teacher lets out a hum, and then he keeps walking, moving over to the next desk to collect the next detention slip. While he does, John leans over to whisper, "You caused an explosion? Like, you blew something up?"

"It was controlled," the curly-haired boy – Sherlock – whispers back. "I knew what I was doing. My teacher didn't see it that way."

"Why?"

"Because she's stupid."

John shakes his head. "No, I mean, why did you cause an explosion?"

Sherlock frowns, as though the question has never before crossed his mind. "Why not?" he says at last. "I wanted to know what would happen, and I was bored."

"So you—" John starts, but the teacher cuts him off before he can finish his sentence.

"Quiet, Mr Watson," Mr Thomas says sharply, and John jerks away from Sherlock as though he has been burned. He is not used to being told off, not in school. He's not used to teachers shouting at him, or talking to him in harsh tones. It makes him feel guilty. He drops his gaze to the floor.

The teacher collects the last of the detention slips and moves to the front of the class, placing the folder down on his desk before taking a seat. "Get to work, then," he instructs, and the students in the classroom do just that. They reach into their bags, pulling out notebooks and homework and other things to keep themselves occupied while they're stuck here. Everything is much more subdued than it was when John first entered the classroom. No one is throwing things or shouting anymore. John wonders if they're all scared of getting into trouble, if that's why they all behave now that the teacher is here.

John pulls out his notebook, and flips through the pages until he can find something to work on. The issue is that John pays attention in class, more so than the other students. A lot of the time, the homework he and his classmates are given is just whatever they did not finish in class. It means that John often has little to no homework, because he has finished most, if not all, of his work in class. Usually this is a good thing, because it means he can go home and do whatever he wants, but today, it is most definitely not a good thing, because if he doesn't have homework to do then he won't look like he's working, and then he might get into trouble. He doesn't want the teacher to think that he is slacking off. He doesn't want to be yelled at.

He eventually settles on one of his maths worksheets. He takes his time going through each of the questions and checking his answers. He could normally finish something like this very quickly, but today, he would rather slow himself down and make it seem like he is busy for longer.

After a moment or two, the boy next to him leans over to place a folded piece of paper on his desk. John glances at him with a frown, and then looks up at the teacher in front. He doesn't want to get caught passing notes. The teacher is not looking, however – Mr Thomas seems preoccupied with whatever piece of paper is sitting on his desk – so John decides to risk it. He takes the piece of paper and carefully unfolds it underneath his desk.

It reads: _You're not used to this, are you?_

John assumes that 'this' refers to getting into trouble, or getting sent to detention. He glances at Sherlock out of the corner of his eye, and then writes out his response, his handwriting a scrawl beneath Sherlock's.

His response reads: _I don't want to get into more trouble._

He passes the note back to Sherlock, who reads it and writes his own response in return. It reads: _Goody-two-shoes. You won't get into any more trouble. You're the only one doing work._

John reads the note, and then looks around to find that Sherlock is right. Although the students at the surrounding desks did get their notebooks out when the teacher instructed them to, none of them are actually doing any work. Some are doodling in the corners of their margins; others are staring absently into space. One girl has her eyes downcast, and after a moment, John realises that that is because she has a mobile phone hiding underneath her desk. John doesn't even own a mobile phone.

John looks back at the note, and then he writes out his response, and for several minutes, they continue a conversation like this, writing and passing a folded slip of paper back and forth between them.

John writes: _Won't Mr Thomas notice everyone's not working and tell them off?_

Sherlock writes: _You're in detention. The people here don't really care about being yelled at._

John writes: _But won't Mr Thomas just send them to detention again later?_

Sherlock writes: _Unlikely. Mr Thomas hates being here as much as we do. Ignores us just so he can send us home and not need to bring us back._

John writes: _What's the point of detention then?_

Sherlock writes: _There is none. Look around. No one here will stop doing what they do just because they spent an hour in detention._

John writes: _None of you are even a little scared of getting into trouble?_

Sherlock writes: _Of course not. Why are you?_

John does not respond to this one immediately. He fiddles with his pen instead, trying to think of a response. Sherlock, however, seems to know what he is thinking, even though John has no idea how he could have worked it out.

Sherlock takes the note back before John can write anything on it, and he adds an extra line: _It's not Mr Thomas you're scared of. It's your family._

The words on the page almost make John flinch. He knows there's no point in denying it. He thinks carefully for a moment, and then writes: _My dad won't be happy._

Sherlock writes: _You had a good reason._

John writes: _He won't care. He won't listen to my side of the story._

Sherlock writes: _You're scared of going home._

John hesitates for a moment, and then writes: _It's fine. He'll just yell a bit._

Sherlock writes: _It doesn't seem fine._

John doesn't know what to say in response. He doesn't want to say anything in response. Instead, he just passes the note back to Sherlock without adding an extra sentence, and he turns his attention back to his worksheet. Sherlock does not try to stop him.

It's a good thing, really, that John opted to go back to doing his homework instead of continuing to pass notes to Sherlock. It's only a short while later when Mr Thomas looks up from his desk and he realises that one of the girls in the classroom has a mobile phone under her desk. He walks over to take it off her, and what this means is that, when he walks past John's desk, he can see John's notebook, full of all the work that John had done over the last forty minutes or so. If he had seen John passing notes, John probably would have gotten into trouble. Fortunately, John just looks like he's been working quietly all detention (which he has been, mostly).

"Mr Watson," the teacher says. John's head snaps up immediately. He finds himself instantly filled with dread, thinking that he's about to get into trouble, even though he has done nothing wrong. When John meets Mr Thomas' eye, Mr Thomas continues, "You can pack up your things and go." A beat, and then he adds, "Mr Holmes too, seeing as he's far less disruptive next to you."

John glances at Sherlock out of the corner of his eye. Since they stopped passing notes, Sherlock has been completely silent. John can see a textbook that's open on Sherlock's desk. It looks far more complicated than anything that John has ever seen.

He stands and gathers his belongings, while Sherlock does the same beside him, pushing their books into their bags and hauling their bags over their shoulders. "Thank you, sir," John says before he steps out of the door.

Sherlock follows after him. " _Thank you, sir_ ," he mimics when they're in the hallway. "Do you always speak like that, or is it just when you're worried about getting into trouble?"

"Shut up," John says, and then he glances at Sherlock out of the corner of his eye. "What did he mean, you're less disruptive next to me?"

Sherlock shrugs his shoulders dismissively. "Normally I don't sit still and silent for an entire hour," he says.

"Why did you do that today, then?"

"I was thinking."

"About?"

Sherlock is silent for a moment, not responding to the question. They walk side-by-side through the halls. After a moment, however, Sherlock takes a step in front of John, blocking his path, and forcing John to stop walking. Sherlock says, "Come back to my house."

"What?"

"You don't want to go home. Might as well give your dad some more time to calm down before you see him, right?"

John considers it. He's not sure how much of a difference it will make, but it might help at least a bit. Maybe it means that when John gets home he will actually be able to tell his side of the story, without just being yelled at.

"Will your parents mind?" he asks.

Sherlock shakes his head. "I doubt it. Mummy keeps saying I should invite friends over more. We have a guest room, so she won't mind if you stay the night."

"Like a sleepover?"

"Like a sleepover."

John thinks about it for a moment. He hasn't been to a sleepover in ages. He barely knows this boy – only met him today. But, he doesn't want to go home, and really, he finds Sherlock kind of interesting. Maybe, he thinks, a sleepover would be a good way to make friends.

"That would be nice, actually," John says, and Sherlock grins.


	25. Blogger

**Author's Note:** When I first started this series, I had a list of styles of writing or narration that I wanted to experiment with. I knew I wanted at least one story told from the perspective of someone outside of Sherlock and John - and you may remember _Explosive_ , which was told from Lestrade's perspective. When I got this prompt, however, trying out that same style of narration seemed like the natural thing to do. A million thanks to my wonderful beta, Becca (Ao3's LlamaWithAPen), for correcting my mess and for making me laugh with her complaints about how I made her _almost_ like Kitty Riley.

* * *

Prompt from user Skystorm14113: _Some kid at their school is pretty famous on social media, and has a headcanon going that John and Sherlock are in love for which the kid posts pictures and videos all the time to prove to his/her followers._

 **Blogger**

Some people take years to work out what they want to be when they grow up. Some children go through hobby after hobby, phase after phase; they want to be an actor today and an astronaut tomorrow, and a firefighter the week after that. Some people do not discover that a particular field is interesting to them until late in their high school or university years, when they find themselves enjoying a class and decide that it is a subject that they would like to pursue in the future. Some people are still trying to work out what they want to be well into adulthood, treating their current jobs as temporary until they find something that they are really passionate about.

Kitty Riley was not one of those people. Kitty was the sort of person who knew exactly what she wanted to be since she was a child. Sure, she did not always know the word – at first, she just knew that she wanted to be a writer, but she didn't have the language to be more specific than that. Since she had started high school, however, and since she had learnt about the opportunities that were out there, Kitty had known that she wanted to be a journalist. She did not know exactly what type of journalist she wanted to be just yet, but that was okay. She had time to work that out. She hadn't even graduated yet.

That being said, Kitty knew that it was never too early to start preparing herself for her future. Journalism was not an easy business to break into, after all. Kitty did not want to turn into a thirty-year-old woman who was still searching for her first big break. This was why everything Kitty did in high school was with the intention of preparing herself for the future. She spent her Tuesday lunchtimes in the writing club (even though most of the members of the writers club were more interested in writing fiction, while her interest lay in the real world). She wrote for the school newspaper, because she knew that having her name in the by-line of an article – even in something as small-scale as a school newspaper – would be beneficial. And, of course, in the modern day of technology that she lived in, Kitty took advantage of the several different social media platforms that she had access to. Most importantly, she ran a blog.

Kitty used a pen-name on her blog, just in case she ended up looking back on it in one, two, five years' time and realised that her writing was not as good as it could have been. By using a pen-name, she had the option of keeping it a secret from anyone if she wanted to – friends, family, potential employers – but if it was successful, she could announce to the world that she was the writer behind it. Either way, blogging was an excellent way to start making a name for herself, and it gave her a way to practice. That, and she had developed a bit of a fan base from it.

Kitty had wanted a fan base when she first started her blog. Of course she did. If she could get somewhat famous as a writer before she left school, it would help her in the long run. When she had first started her blog, she had been foolish enough to believe that achieving this would be easy. She would make a few interesting blog posts, tag them in ways that got people's attention, and _boom_ , Kitty's blog would go viral and she would be famous. Unfortunately, Kitty was very quick to discover that it was not that easy. She was lucky to get hits in the double digits, let alone anything else.

She tried several different types of posts, determined not to give up, desperate to work out what kinds of posts would make her blog the most popular. She compiled information from different newspaper articles, taking in stories that had been told in slightly different ways across papers and turning them into a single, coherent narrative. She wrote about smaller-scale events in her school that people would not be able to read about in any other paper. She interviewed her peers and wrote about people's hobbies or their plans for the future. Sometimes, she even wrote about herself, giving her readers a vague insight into the writer behind the blog. Yet, none of these posts worked out.

Yet Kitty was determined, and after months and months of trying out different styles and glaring at her hit counter as though it would make it increase, she found it – the post that people wanted to read. Really, once she found it, it was so obvious; she should have thought of it sooner. After all, there were some things in the world that were bound to get people's attention, especially the people of her main audience of high school students. There was nothing a high school student loved more than a little bit of gossip.

Kitty looked for stories – the kind of things that people would whisper about in the hallways and pass through the grapevine with the addition of "You didn't hear it from me" – and she would write about them. Stories about secret relationships, about the kind of things that people got up to in their spare time, the kind of things you might not know about just by looking at someone. Once Kitty started looking, she found dozens upon dozens of stories to be told. There were more than enough to fill up several blog posts, and the more blog posts she wrote, the higher her hit counter would climb. As her blog took off, people started commenting, leaving anonymous tips about something they had overheard, and it would give Kitty something to look out for, in case there was another story there to be told. It was almost like being a detective.

Of course, some stories were always going to be more popular than others. Some stories happened to be more interesting, or more controversial, or just well-written, and these stories would be the ones that got more hits and comments than any others. Some of her most popular posts surrounded two particular individuals at her school: Sherlock Holmes and John Watson.

OoO

The first time Sherlock Holmes met John Watson, Kitty Riley just so happened to be present. Sherlock Holmes and John Watson met in a maths class. Maths was the only class that Kitty shared with Sherlock Holmes. For the most part, their interests were so different that their class schedules did not overlap – Sherlock Holmes liked science, and Kitty liked writing and art and other such subjects in which there were no right answers. The only reason why Kitty was also taking a maths class was because it was compulsory. She would have dropped it years ago, if she had the choice. (Really, why did maths need to be compulsory? Sure, she could understand the need for basic arithmetic, but why did the alphabet need to be involved?)

Kitty spent most of her time in this class doodling in her margins and pretending she had some sort of idea of whatever the teacher was talking about.

On this particular Monday morning, Kitty was absently drawing flowers in the margins of her notebook when the door to the classroom opened. She had no way of knowing at the time that the unassuming boy who entered – a boy only a little bit taller than her, with short, blond hair and a jumper that was just a little bit too big for him – would have such a drastic impact on her life (or, at least on her blog). The boy introduced himself as John Watson. When the teacher instructed him to tell the class a little bit about himself, he explained that he had just moved to London with his family, but it was hard for him to answer the question of where he was from originally, because he had moved around so much as a child. He had a twin sister, and his favourite subject was science – specifically biology. When he graduated, he planned on going into medicine.

When the teacher asked John Watson to take a seat, Kitty had to suppress a wince. She happened to know that there was only one spare seat in the classroom that day. That seat was in the back row, directly behind her, and it was empty for a reason – namely, that it was a seat next to Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock Holmes was rude and arrogant and unfriendly towards everyone he met. Kitty had only seen him for a few hours a week in this very maths class, but she had already developed a dislike of him. She couldn't help but feel sorry for this new boy, knowing that he was about to have the most unwelcome start to a first day at a new school as he possibly could.

She watched John weave his way through the desks to get to the spare seat at the back. She caught his eye briefly as he walked past, and he flashed her a smile, which she returned with an apologetic expression. He did not know why her expression was apologetic – she could see that in the bemused look that briefly crossed his face – but he was about to find out. Oh, he was about to find out, all right.

She heard the sound of chair legs scraping along the floor behind her, followed a moment later by what had to be the sound of John Watson taking a seat. At the same time, the teacher turned back to the whiteboard, beginning to write up various complicated-looking equations that Kitty would not have paid attention to in any circumstance. Rather, her attention was on the two boys behind her, and specifically on the new boy, when she heard him say, "Hey."

She wished that she could have given him some sort of warning before he sat down, to tell him not to interact with Sherlock. Sherlock would take the casual greeting as an open invitation to speak his mind, and there was no way that that would end well.

Behind her, Sherlock said, "Military family."

Kitty bit her lip. She already knew where this was going. The only thing worse than Sherlock's tendency to talk to people like they were below him – mere mortals beside a God whose intelligence was beyond anything they had ever seen (or at least, that's how Kitty assumed Sherlock saw himself) – was this: Sherlock's "deductions". Sherlock had some way of reading people's minds. Somehow, he just knew about things that he shouldn't. Kitty remembered how he had announced that Phillip Anderson had been cheating on his girlfriend with Sally Donovan, even though the two of them were cautious about how they acted at school. She remembered how he had made certain comments about which person Sebastian Wilkes had spent a night with earlier in the year. She remembered once when she had failed a maths test, and Sherlock Holmes had known, even though she had been so careful not to show anyone the grade when her paper was handed to her. She had wanted to keep it a secret. Around Sherlock, that was a waste of time.

Needless to say, being the subject of one of Sherlock Holmes' "deductions" was not a pleasant experience. Sherlock could bring up any deep, dark secret that you wanted to keep hidden, and he either did not realise, or did not care, that people's secrets were usually secret for a reason. Kitty hoped to herself that this new boy in class did not have any secrets that he wanted to keep hidden, because having those secrets brought up on the very first day would hardly be a good start. First days at new schools were hard enough without someone like Sherlock Holmes in the picture.

Behind her, John said, "How did you know that?"

Sherlock replied, "Even an idiot could tell that you have a certain degree of familiarity when it comes to moving schools. It's certainly not a leap to assume that this is due to at least one of the members of your immediate family serving in the military." A pause, and then he continued, "That family member is an army doctor, I'd assume, given your plans for the future. Makes sense that you have a role model of sorts that has inspired you to become a doctor. It's certainly a good thing that your lifestyle and your exposure to the military has inspired you and motivated you, instead of causing you an inordinate amount of stress and leading you to find unhealthy coping mechanisms such as drinking. Pity, really. You said she was your twin sister, yes? That's quite young for someone to develop an alcohol addiction. I take it that came from someone else in your family, too."

Kitty stared down at the notebook on her desk. Even hearing Sherlock make these deductions about someone else – a perfect stranger, no less – made her feel tense. She could not imagine how painful it was to listen to these deductions as the subject of them. Sherlock Holmes had just ruined whatever chances John had had of having a fresh start and settling in easily to his new school. Things about his personal life, such as his sister's alcohol dependency, undoubtedly would have been the kinds of things that John would have wanted to keep to himself, and now Sherlock had gone and –

Behind her, John said, "Christ. That's... How on earth did you know all that? That's amazing."

Kitty frowned.

Had she heard that correctly? Had the new boy really just called Sherlock's deductions "amazing"? That was certainly not the reaction that she expected. It wasn't the reaction that Sherlock's deductions usually got, either. Kitty had heard the way people responded to Sherlock's deductions on multiple occasions. They called him "creepy" or "weird". They usually told him to "piss off". They most certainly did not call him "amazing". That was _not_ what people usually said.

Judging by the silence behind her, Sherlock might have been thinking the exact same thing.

OoO

The only thing stranger than John's unexpectedly positive reaction to Sherlock's deductions on their first meeting was when John came into class the next day and sat down next to Sherlock without hesitation. One of the girls in the middle row was sick on that day, so there was another spare seat that John could have easily taken, but even given the choice, he sat next to Sherlock.

Clearly, this new boy was weird.

OoO

After the first week, Sherlock and John dropped off Kitty's radar for a little while. She still shared that maths class with them, of course, and she also shared the same English class with John. However, for a while, she paid no attention to them. She had no reason to take note of anything that the two of them were doing. She had more important things on her mind. She needed to look for topics of interest of her blog, and the new boy at her school being strange enough to spend time with Sherlock Holmes voluntarily, while weird, was not something that would interest her audience.

The next time Kitty really, really paid attention to Sherlock Holmes and John Watson was during a lunch hour over six months later.

It was one of the rare, sunny days in London, and the majority of the student body was taking advantage of the pleasant weather. The courtyard was bustling with students, far more so than it usually was during lunch. Some people were sitting on benches and reading or writing or studying. Some were sitting with circles and playing with their hair and gossiping with their friends. Others were just wandering through the courtyard and getting some sun before they had to go back inside for the afternoon.

Kitty liked it when the courtyard was like this, because it was the ideal place for people-watching. People-watching was Kitty's favourite pastime, because it was one of the best ways for Kitty to find inspiration for blog posts. Everyone in the courtyard had a story; everyone was living their own lives as the protagonists of their own little worlds. Kitty's job as a budding journalist was to be the one to bring each of those stories into the light, to sit there in the courtyard and watch and listen and work out which of those stories deserved to be brought to a wider audience.

Her eyes drifted over the crowd, searching for stories among each of the students there. Most of the students in the courtyard were too caught up in their own heads to notice her staring – and she wasn't staring, not really, because her eyes did not linger on a single person or group of people for too long. She watched each person, or group, only for a matter of seconds, long enough to work out what they were doing and make a judgement as to how interesting their story was, and if the story wasn't interesting, she would dismiss them and move on. The unfortunate truth of life was that, although everyone had their own story, most of those stories were not actually that interesting.

One person did catch her staring, however. As Kitty's eyes drifted over the crowd, they locked, for a split second, with those of Sherlock Holmes. He was sitting on a bench on the other side of the courtyard, watching the crowd just like Kitty was. Kitty looked away quickly; she did not want to give Sherlock any reason to think that she had been staring – which she had _not_ been, especially not at him. She didn't want Sherlock thinking something crazy, like that Kitty _liked_ him. That was the problem with boys, Kitty thought. The slightest bit of attention was indicative of your attraction, as far as they were concerned. Catching their eye briefly meant you must have been staring. A well-mannered greeting might as well have been a confession of love. Treating a boy in any way that wasn't overtly rude meant liked him (and sometimes, even treating him in a way that was overtly rude meant you liked him, too).

Granted, this was only based on Kitty's experience with most of the boys at their high school. As she thought about it, however, she realised that she did not think Sherlock would be quite the same. Sherlock was clever, without a doubt, but if there was one place where his genius was lacking, it was in the realm of feelings. One of the other girls at their school, Molly Hooper, was rather infatuated with Sherlock (for God knows what reason), and Kitty often thought that everyone at the school knew this except for Sherlock himself. Molly's interest had always seemed to go right over Sherlock's head. Perhaps it was because he believed himself to be too good for anyone at the school. He would never stoop so low as to date one of the girls in his class.

She glanced back at Sherlock Holmes to make sure that he did not think she had been staring, and she found that his own gaze had moved on from her as well. His eyes drifted over the crowd just as Kitty's had been doing moments ago, and she wondered for a moment if maybe he was like her – if he was also looking for the stories of each of the other people in the courtyard. He would not be searching for stories to write them down in blog posts, like Kitty did, but perhaps he was sitting in the courtyard and trying to make deductions, like he did from those nearly-unnoticeable details that he could somehow see when everyone else couldn't. Perhaps that skill was one that he practiced over time.

She watched as his eyes moved from person to person, and she couldn't help but wonder what he saw. Kitty was clever too – she had to be, because she needed to be able to find stories that weren't obvious to other people – but that did not mean she could do what Sherlock Holmes did. He could see so much more than she could, see things that she did not even know were there. She wondered how he had learnt to do that. Had he always been able to make deductions? Had he always noticed things, even as a child? Or had he grown up practicing it for years and years, playing games of make believe and pretending to be a detective or a spy?

It would be nice to be able to do what Sherlock Holmes did. It would definitely add another element to her blog.

Now, Kitty was actually staring – not because she was interested, absolutely not, but because she had found herself caught up in Sherlock's story. She hadn't even realised she was staring, for a moment. She shook her head, and went to turn away, to look for another story in one of the other people there, but something made her stop.

The thing with Sherlock was that he rarely showed emotion. His expression was cold and calculating by default. Kitty couldn't think of a time when she had actually seen him smile, and when he spoke his voice was almost monotonous. Sometimes, Kitty thought he might be a robot. It would certainly explain a thing or two. What this meant, of course, was that whenever Sherlock did show emotion, it was obvious, because it was so different to his usual, blank expression. This was why, for a moment, Kitty could not tear her eyes away.

It wasn't quite a smile, or anything that simple. It was subtle, obvious to Kitty only because she had just so happened to have been watching him moments earlier, so she could see the contrast with the sterner expression that had been on his face mere seconds ago. The lines on Sherlock's face seemed to smooth out, and his eyes seemed to soften. It was hard to put a name on the expression, but it was definitely something positive. There was something calm and content about the look – happy, but not the kind of happiness that was associated with bright smiles and loud laughter. The expression almost looked warm – and to use that word was bizarre, because Kitty had never known Sherlock to be anything but cold.

She followed Sherlock's gaze, and it only took her a second to realise why such a warm expression had come over Sherlock's face. John Watson was heading towards him. John Watson _did_ have a bright smile on his face, but that was hardly strange. John was much more human than Sherlock was. He often smiled like that.

But Sherlock – Sherlock did not show emotions. He didn't show happiness, or sadness, or anything except for the occasional smugness. Yet, here Kitty was, sitting in a courtyard, watching the way that John Watson was able to make Sherlock Holmes – machine-like Sherlock Holmes – feel something so strongly that it brought an emotional expression to his otherwise blank face.

 _That_ was interesting.

OoO

Kitty wrote about the encounter between John and Sherlock when she got home that afternoon.

At a glance, it certainly wasn't the most interesting of stories. It was little more than a simple emotional expression. However, Kitty had been writing blog posts for a while, and she knew what kinds of blog posts tended to do better than others. Her hit counter had gradually increased since she had started writing – she easily got more hits on any post she posted nowadays than when she had first started out – but some posts were just that little bit more interesting to her readers, and one such type of post was of the romantic sort.

Kitty knew that the majority of her readership was made up of teenagers, based on the statistics trackers on her blog. This was hardly surprising, given she wrote about high school-based gossip. Teenagers were always falling in love, falling in and out of relationships. Perhaps it was a hormonal thing, or perhaps it was just the unavoidable result of spending thirty or so hours with one another a week. It was only natural that being around their classmates for so long would lead to feelings.

Kitty liked writing about relationships, because she could live vicariously through the posts. She did not have time for boys in her life. She was too busy preparing for her future career – and besides, why on earth would she want to date any of the morons she went to school with? However, Kitty could enjoy writing about the people she'd catch watching each other in class, and there was always a little bit thrilling when she saw two people who she knew would be perfect for each other start holding hands. Kitty was no matchmaker, but with the sheer amount of time she spent people-watching at school, of course she would start picking up on the hints that said that they liked each other a little bit more than friends.

Kitty wouldn't have thought, in the past, that anyone would be a good match for Sherlock Holmes, but the way he looked at John that day made her question that.

She may have tweaked the post a little bit as she wrote it, exaggerating the truth just a little bit. The expression on Sherlock's face had been soft, but it might not have necessarily been the expression of longing that Kitty claimed it was in her blog. It was hardly a big deal, though. It wasn't an outright lie; it was just a little bit of a stretch. Journalists did have to put their own spin on things from time to time, after all.

Kitty didn't just write about the look, as well. That wasn't long enough. Instead, she went back to the start, and wrote about that first maths class, when she had heard John sit behind her and call Sherlock amazing. At the time, Kitty had thought this was weird. She had not thought at the time that this was the start of something, anything more than a friendship, but she stretched the truth on that a bit as well.

Kitty knew the post would be popular, because posts about love and relationships and romance generally were. She did not realise, however, precisely how successful the post would be.

There was something particularly exciting about the concept of a love story between Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. Perhaps it was the fact that they were both boys, so there was an element of 'forbidden love' to it. On top of that, some of Kitty's readers went to Kitty's school, so they knew the kind of person that Sherlock was and they knew, just as Kitty did, how strange it was for Sherlock to express anything that could even be considered romantic. Whatever the reason, the hit counter on this particular post shot up, and suddenly, Kitty was getting comments from people who desperately wanted more. After all, Kitty had given them no more than a taste – a mention of a boy who never smiled letting a fond expression cross his face, just for a moment. People wanted more than that. People wanted to know if there really was something there, if something could really come of this.

Maybe, Kitty thought to herself, a post like this deserved a sequel.

OoO

Once Kitty started looking, it was everywhere.

Kitty would have thought that writing posts that even so much as alluded to a love story between John Watson and Sherlock Holmes would be next to impossible. "Sherlock Holmes" and "love story" were not words that belonged in the same sentence. And yet, as soon as Kitty started looking for evidence that she could write about to prove to her readers that a love story was exactly what was blossoming between the two boys, it was everywhere.

The thing was, Sherlock Holmes wasn't nice to anyone except John. Most of the time, Sherlock behaved in a way that was outright rude. Anything that was not outright rude, therefore, would seem kind in contrast. And Sherlock was more than just _kind_ to John – more than just the kind of meaningless politeness that, for most people, would be a baseline for treating strangers and acquaintances-who-were-not-quite-friends. Sherlock would say things that were not quite compliments, but coming from him, they might as well have been declarations of love. Sherlock would tell John his ideas were decent, or that he had a marvellous ability to stimulate genius in others. Sure, they were hardly compliments, but they were definitely something different to Sherlock's usual treatment, and his tendency to tell everyone that they were idiots.

Of course, Kitty did sometimes hear him call John an idiot too – followed by "Everyone is, don't make that face" – but the fact still remained that sometimes, he would say something that, when you picked apart the insult and the high-and-mighty tone, was actually a compliment.

Kitty was fairly sure that John knew that these comments were Sherlock's versions of compliments, too, because she had caught him hiding a smile when Sherlock said them from time to time.

It was something else to go in her blog.

OoO

They weren't the only thing that Kitty wrote about, of course. Kitty did not want her blog to have such a narrow focus. She wanted to have a wide range of posts; she didn't want to be like a Sherlock+John fan blog. After all, eventually Kitty would graduate and she would likely never see Sherlock or John again, and the last thing she needed was to have locked herself so tightly into such a narrow focus for her blog that she suddenly had nothing to write about. However, Kitty made sure to at least mention a thing or two about Sherlock and John every few weeks, because it was what the people wanted. The comments proved how hooked people were on this particular story. She would be a bad writer if she completely ignored her readers' desires.

She tried to stay as close to the truth as she could manage. She could not go ahead and write about Sherlock and John getting together (even though she was sure that _that_ was what peopled wanted), because anyone who went to her school would see John and Sherlock and know that this was a lie, and then Kitty would lose all of her credibility. However, she had no problems with tweaking the truth a little bit. It wasn't hard to just exaggerate what she saw when Sherlock looked at John, or when John looked at Sherlock. She caught them stealing glances at each other so often, it wasn't hard to push that just that little bit further.

They were almost always together, which meant it was always very easy for Kitty to find something to write about. The only times they were ever apart were during the classes that they did not share. If they were in the same class, they were always sitting side-by-side. Kitty was fairly certain she had seen them passing notes from time to time. Outside of class hours, too, they were together – they joined one another for lunch, and waited outside classrooms at the end of the day so that they could walk home together.

The more Kitty watched them, the more convinced she became that there really was something there. Maybe there was more truth in her blog posts than she would have originally believed.

Sometimes, Kitty would go a little bit further than just writing about them, too. Her audience wanted more, more, more, and Kitty was willing to do whatever it took to keep them coming back. Sometimes, she would manage to catch pictures of them on her phone that she could add to her posts. They were never the clearest pictures, because she could only take the photos on her camera phone, usually when hidden behind walls, but it was something. It made her feel a little bit like a spy, peering around corners with her phone raised.

Kitty wasn't stalking them, of course – she wasn't _that_ weird – but the school was only so big, and it was just so easy for her to _happen_ to run into them while they were together, for her to pull out her phone and snap a quick photo that could go on her blog post that weekend. It was surprisingly easy, too, to get photos that supported her theory that Sherlock and John were a couple. For example, whenever Sherlock looked at people, his gaze was intense, like he was looking into them. It might have been no more than his attempts to make a deduction, but when caught on camera, it was too easy to interpret the intense stare when Sherlock looked at John as something of longing. The right words in the text could all but force the readers of Kitty's blog to interpret the picture in that way. So, whenever Kitty had the opportunity, she snapped a picture for her blog, and those pictures almost always seemed to say exactly what Kitty wanted them to.

OoO

This went on for months.

OoO

When the school year came to an end, and everyone left for the summer, Kitty's Sherlock-and-John themed blog posts went on hold temporarily. As much as Kitty wanted to maintain the large fanbase that had grown over the past several months, Kitty was not going to stalk Sherlock and John outside of school. _That_ would be weird. Instead, Kitty wrote about other things over the holidays, and she ignored the one or two comments that she got from anonymous users who made it clear to her that they were only there for her Sherlock-and-John posts and didn't care about anything else Kitty had to say. All the same, Kitty couldn't deny that she was glad when school finally did go back, because she could go back to writing the posts that had played such a substantial role in developing her blog and increasing her readership.

For the first time since Kitty had started school, she found herself hoping, as she got her class timetable for the year, that she would share a class with Sherlock Holmes. She was in luck, too, because she was sharing English with both John and Sherlock. She would have preferred it to be maths, really, because she liked English as a subject and didn't want too much of her attention taken away by the two boys, but with their vastly different interests, it was really only the compulsory classes that Kitty had any hope of sharing with Sherlock Holmes. She would take what she could.

She overheard the boys talking in the first week back at school, and they made reference to something that had happened over the break, making it clear that they had spent some of their school holidays together. That got mentioned on the blog, too.

OoO

It was bound to happen sooner or later.

The thing with social media was that word spread fast. The rumour mill was powerful enough at school even without social media involved; with social media, rumours could spread in what felt like a heartbeat. It was only natural that Kitty's growing online popularity would mean that more and more people were familiar with John and Sherlock and the relationship between them (regardless of whether that was real, or whether it was just a figment of Kitty's imagination, turned into a series of blog posts). It was only to be expected that eventually, word would spread to John and Sherlock, too.

Sherlock and John were not the only people at Kitty's school who had at least featured in her blog, but to her knowledge, they were the first to discover it. Maybe Kitty would have gotten away with it if it was just one blog post, but a series was not quite so easy to hide.

She was there the day it came out into the open – and that wasn't because she had been stalking them, of course. Admittedly, yes, she had chosen a locker in the hallway where Sherlock Holmes had his locker because it gave her a better chance of catching a good story, but that wasn't stalking. It would only be stalking if Kitty made an effort to go to her locker at the same time as Sherlock Holmes, and Kitty didn't do that. The fact that she happened to be at her locker at the same time as Sherlock Holmes on the very day when John approached him was pure chance.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw John go up to Sherlock and grab his arm with one hand. "Have you seen this?" John asked, showing Sherlock something on his phone. From where she was standing, Kitty could not see John's phone screen, but a few possibilities immediately sprang to mind.

Sherlock proved her assumption to be correct when he said, "Looks like a picture of us."

"It's not just a picture of us," said John. "Look at this. There are pages and pages of them. Not just pictures, too. There are stories. It's like we're being stalked!"

"We're not being stalked," Sherlock said, closing his locker door. Kitty found herself hoping that they would not walk away. She hoped they would stay by the lockers so she could hear them talk. Sherlock continued, "The photos, and the stories, only centre around times when we are at school. It's obvious the writer is just one of our classmates, and she has certainly not made the effort to stalk us beyond school grounds."

"She?" repeated John.

"Female writing is very distinctive," Sherlock said, and he turned to walk away, but John caught his arm to stop him.

"Wait, wait, wait," John said. "You knew about this?"

"My name is not a common one," Sherlock said. "It would hardly escape my notice – or my brother's notice – if it was repeatedly appearing on a website. I like to be aware of my digital footprint."

"Why haven't you mentioned it, then?"

Sherlock shrugged his shoulders dismissively. "It hardly seemed relevant."

"Not relevant?" John repeated incredulously. "Sherlock, someone is taking photos of us and writing stories about us. Stories about how we're _secretly dating_ , of all things. How is that not relevant?"

Kitty could have sworn Sherlock tensed at the statement – but after spending so long looking for evidence that proved that John and Sherlock were dating, maybe she had lost her grip on objectivity.

Sherlock's voice when he spoke next was terser. "The stories are harmless. Written by a teenager for teenagers. It's hardly as though their opinions on their details of our relationship have any bearing on us. The writer will lose interest eventually and will move onto another story."

"Sherlock, they think we're dating," John said. "Anyone at the school who has ever read that blog thinks we're dating."

"And?"

John made a gesture with both hands, as if the "and" was obvious. Maybe it was, to him. Maybe Sherlock didn't care what people thought, but John did.

When John did not reply verbally, Sherlock once again turned to walk away. "As I said, the posts are harmless," Sherlock said. "The writer will eventually lose interest, and until she does, it hardly affects our day-to-day lives."

"The posts are not _harmless_ ," John said, once again grabbing Sherlock's arm and forcing him to turn back. "Sherlock, for God's sake. They think we're gay."

"And what does that _matter_?" Sherlock replied, and this time just for a second, he wasn't as calm and collected as he always was. His voice sounded harsher, tenser. If Kitty didn't know any better, she might have thought that he was upset.

John didn't reply. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see him hold Sherlock's gaze for a moment, and she thought something in his expression changed, but it was hard to tell from where she was standing. She did see him open his mouth, probably to say something, but before he had the chance, Sherlock shook his hand off, turned, and walked away. This time, John did not try to stop him.

OoO

The words "And what does that matter?" echoed in Kitty's head for the rest of the day. Each iteration was laden with just a little bit more emotion, a little bit more hurt. Kitty wasn't sure how much of that was real and how much she was just making up in her head.

OoO

When they got into class the next morning, John arrived after Kitty, but before Sherlock. He took his usual seat at the back of the room.

When Sherlock got in, instead of sitting next to John like he normally would, he sat at the vacant desk at the front of the class.

Kitty swore she saw John's shoulders fall when Sherlock took a seat, and she didn't see either of them make eye contact with one another for the duration of class.

OoO

That afternoon, Kitty deleted every post about Sherlock Holmes and John Watson from her blog.

People complained, of course. A portion of her readership was there purely for the posts that centred on the two boys, and the moment all of those posts vanished, people started asking questions. She ignored all of these comments, and she stopped checking her hit counter on her blog. She didn't want to see how drastically it had decreased now that the Sherlock-and-John posts were gone, and frankly, she didn't care. It wasn't that important anymore.

John and Sherlock weren't talking now, and it was her fault. It wasn't the first time that Kitty had spread gossip through her blog, but it was the most drastic consequences that had ever followed, and Kitty wasn't heartless. For her to not care whatsoever that her blog posts had caused Sherlock and John to stop talking to each other – well, she would have to be just as bad as Sherlock Holmes himself.

It was made even worse by the fact that, over the next few weeks, Sherlock seemed more human than she had ever given him credit for before. It wasn't as though he was roaming the halls weeping or anything quite so dramatic, but it felt as though his expression looked a little bit softer than it usually did. Sadder, even.

She didn't see him and John together during their lunch times anymore, and they stopped sitting with each other during class. Kitty saw both of them seek each other out with their eyes, whether they were consciously aware of it or not, but their eyes never met. They never saw the other looking back at them in the same way that they had been looking moments ago. They had no way of knowing that both of them were really doing the exact same thing.

It didn't make sense, Kitty thought. Clearly they both hated the silence between them, and yet neither were actually willing to approach the other and attempt to repair the damage and move past it. They were both sitting there suffering, without making any effort to make things better.

Boys were idiots, Kitty thought, but maybe thinking that was just her way of making herself feel better, blaming them for their inability to get past it rather than blaming herself for starting it in the first place.

OoO

Two and a half weeks after The Incident (as Kitty kept referring to it in her head, which she couldn't help but think sounded an awful lot like the title of a blog post), Kitty found Sherlock sitting by himself at lunch time. Once, this would hardly be an unusual sight, because Sherlock used to always sit by himself at lunch. Now, however, it was like something was missing. John had become like Sherlock's better half, and seeing them apart seemed wrong.

Sherlock's head was in a book, and there was a sandwich beside him that he had clearly not made any effort to eat. He seemed too caught up, for the moment, to notice that Kitty was staring.

She wasn't sure what compelled her to do it. Perhaps it was the fact that guilt had been eating at her mind for almost three weeks now. Perhaps, instead, it was just because she was a good person – empathetic, compassionate, and unable to walk past someone who was so clearly not-okay. Whatever the reason, Kitty knew that she had to go over there and say something. It was the right thing to do.

She took a deep breath, feeling her heart start to race with an illogical sort of anxiety, and once she felt she was ready, she walked over to where he was sitting and stopped before him.

Sherlock raised his head the moment Kitty's form cast a shadow over the pages of his book. He looked her up and down in the way that he did before he made deductions. It was funny, really. If it were anyone else, Kitty might have thought that they were checking her out. With Sherlock, the thought in no way crossed her mind.

She opened her mouth to speak, but she barely managed to take a breath before Sherlock cut her off.

"If you're here to apologise for your blog, don't bother. It's a waste of both of our time."

Kitty blinked, gaping for a moment like a fish. "How did you—"

"The posts about John and me most frequently centred around occurrences during either last year's maths class and this year's English class, and they stopped suddenly within a couple of days after John found them and approached me. You're the common denominator – you were present in all of those situations. Hardly a leap."

Kitty hesitated, and then, unable to hide her curiosity, she asked, "Did you know it was me before John approached you?"

"I had my suspicions," Sherlock replied.

Kitty nodded in understanding, and then she hesitated again, shifting her weight between her feet. Already, this was the longest conversation she had ever had with Sherlock Holmes – and far longer than any conversation she previously would have wanted to have with him, if she had any choice in the matter. After a moment, she turned and took a seat on the bench beside Sherlock. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sherlock stiffen, pursing his lips into a line.

"Why are you sitting with me?" he said.

Kitty did not answer that specific question (perhaps in part because she wasn't sure what answer she should give). "I won't apologise, because you told me not to," she said. "But... you and John were close. Really close. Surely a few blog posts isn't enough to get between you, right?"

Sherlock did not reply. His gaze remained fixed somewhere on the other side of the courtyard. Kitty thought that was probably better than him going ahead and dismissing her words outright.

She continued, "I know I have no right to give you any advice—"

"No, you don't," Sherlock interrupted.

Ignoring him, Kitty continued, "—but the thing is, you're _both_ avoiding one another. You're cutting him out, you're not sitting with him in class anymore, and that's as much your doing as it is his. And maybe you're both just making matters worse, when you could solve all of this by just talking to each other."

"You have no idea what you're talking about," Sherlock said tightly.

"Maybe," Kitty said. "I know you think you're so much smarter than everyone else. Especially me. But I'm not actually stupid, you know. And no offence, but I don't think you actually understand friendships as well as you understand most things. So, I might actually understand this kind of thing better than you do."

"I understand perfectly well in theory."

"Theory isn't practice. I understand maths in theory, but that doesn't mean I can solve any of the equations our teacher keeps setting us."

"That's a very different example."

"Maybe so." Kitty paused, and then continued, "Look. I just really think you should talk to him. The things I wrote on my blog weren't entirely lies. I might have exaggerated a little bit, but you two were really close. There's a reason why people believed me so easily when I claimed there really was something there."

"You don't know what you're talking about," said Sherlock, and it certainly did not escape Kitty's notice how tight his voice had become.

"I am smart, Sherlock," she said. "Not like you, I know, but I am. I understand people, maybe even better than you do. Thing is, you're sitting here all mopey—"

"I'm not mopey."

"—like you've lost a friend, but you were the one who pushed him away first. You were the one who chose to sit by yourself in English that day."

"This conversation is over," Sherlock said, abruptly getting to his feet. Kitty had half a mind to reach out and grab his arm to stop him, but she didn't think it would end well. Instead, she just spoke up before he was out of ear shot.

"Talk to him, Sherlock," she said. "Just trust me."

Sherlock walked away without another word.

OoO

Sherlock clearly did not take Kitty's advice straight away. For the next few days, she still saw him and John sitting at separate desks in class, both constantly glancing at each other out of the corner of their eyes without ever noticing that the other was doing the exact same thing. It was frustrating, even though whether or not they were ever friends again did not affect Kitty at all.

(Well, maybe it affected her a little bit, because if they were friends again, she didn't have to feel guilty anymore, but that was beside the point.)

After class one day, however, when John got up first to leave, Sherlock scampered to his feet before he was out of sight and rushed after him. When Kitty herself made it out into the hall, she saw the two of them were standing beside the lockers, talking in low tones to one another. She couldn't make out what they were saying in the busy hallway, and this time, she knew better than to hang around.

In class the next day, they were back to their normal seat, sitting side by side once more.

Perhaps, Kitty thought to herself, if her current plans for journalism did not pan out, she could start an advice column instead.

OoO

A few weeks later, when they were leaving the school grounds one afternoon, Kitty could have sworn that, for a moment, she saw John and Sherlock's hands brush together by their sides.

But maybe she was just making up stories.


	26. The Date Crasher

**Author's Note** : A million thanks to the world's best beta, Becca (Ao3's LlamaWithaPen).

* * *

Prompt from user joycely. o. ting (without the spaces, of course, but this website dislikes not having spaces): _Sherlock crashes John's date while trying to apprehend an escaping criminal, and John just instinctively follows him to help, completely forgetting about his date._

 **The Date Crasher**

Our story begins in an Italian restaurant.

You must bear with me, dear reader, as I take a little bit of time setting the scene. I know that it is not what occurs in the Italian restaurant itself, but instead what occurs outside, in the moonlit streets of London, that you will find far more interesting. However, if I were to jump straight to this more interesting part of the story – well, then you would be thrown straight into the middle, and suddenly you would find one character throwing punches and another grabbing his stomach in pain and sirens blaring in the distance, and frankly, you would not have the faintest clue what was going on.

I will get to all of that shortly, I promise you. If you came for violence and action, then I will deliver. Before then, however, we must start in the aforementioned Italian restaurant, where I will introduce to you the first of the two major characters in our story.

First, some context, so that you can put an image in your mind. Imagine a busy, Italian restaurant – waitstaff dressed in black and white, tables covered in red-and-white checked tablecloths, scents of pizzas and pastas floating from the kitchen. It's a Saturday night, and I'm sure you can imagine how busy a nice Italian restaurant gets on a Saturday night. All the tables are occupied – families sharing pizza, friends giggling and gossiping over pieces of garlic bread, men and women in various combinations on first dates (or not-first dates). Chefs in the kitchen place well-presented plates of food on the counter top and ring a bell to tell the waitstaff that the food is ready to be served. Waitstaff weave through closely-packed tables, refilling half-empty water glasses, seating diners, placing cloth serviettes in their laps.

The character that we are particularly interested in on this fine Saturday evening is a man by the name of John Watson. John Watson is an army doctor who has recently returned home from Afghanistan. He is seated at a table by a window, near the kitchen counter; he can smell the fresh food ready to be served. Across from John is a beautiful woman, with dark hair and red lips. Her name is Jeanette. Jeanette is not the second of the two important characters in our story; I tell you her name more so for context than anything else. Jeanette is, of course, an important character in her own story, but she is not an important one in this one. At least, she is not as important as John, and one other character that you will meet very soon.

John and Jeanette are on their first date. If you were sitting there in that Italian restaurant, you would know that just by looking at them, even if you did not have me – your trusty narrator – to tell you as much. There's a certain degree of awkwardness in their conversations, in the way their eyes move around the restaurant instead of holding each other's gaze for extended periods of time; it shows that they have not known each other for very long. They do not have the kind of familiar comfort around one another that comes with a long-term friendship or relationship.

So, if you saw John and Jeanette, you would know without knowing them that they are on a first date. However, I can tell you a little bit more than this. I can tell you not only that they are on a first date, but that that first date is not going well. The awkwardness in their conversation surpasses the kind you would expect from two people who are still getting to know one another. It's the kind of awkwardness that you see when two people are talking and they just don't _click_.

They are trying, of course. They want to get along and they want this to work, because they have put the effort into dressing up and coming out tonight, and they both want to go home feeling like it was a worthwhile use of their time. Unfortunately, however, some people are just not meant to be. Sometimes, no matter how nice two people are to one another, and no matter how hard they try to make a good impression, it just won't work.

Of course, it is also the case in some situations that two people just fit together so easily, that after a few hours of knowing each other, they look like they've been friends for their whole lives. And don't you worry, dear reader, because John will meet someone like this very, very soon.

Now, I've given you a little bit of context. You should be picturing the Italian restaurant, with the awkward couple sitting at the table by the window. Are you picturing it? Perfect. Now, that's the background out of the way. Now, the story can finally begin.

I won't bore you with descriptions of their food (which was delicious) or their conversation (which was awkward), or the thoughts that were running through each of their minds (which portrayed precisely how uncomfortable they were both feeling). Instead, let me skip ahead to something you might find a little bit more interesting.

Let's go with this:

The glass window by John's table shatters, and a man crashes through it, landing directly on John's table.

(Interesting enough for you?)

The man who lands upon John's table is tall and pale, white skin littered with small cuts and bruises (some looking so fresh you can assume they have come from crashing through the glass window mere seconds ago). He is the other important character in our story that I referred to earlier. I will tell you much more about him later. For the moment, however, I'll ask you once again to bear with me – I do not want to give you his name, because I want you to see him as John is seeing him, and John does not yet know his name, or anything else for that matter. For the moment, let's just refer to him as "The Date Crasher".

I'm sure you have heard this term before. I imagine you're familiar with the idea of "crashing" someone else's dates. Usually, date crashing is not quite so literal. It does not usually involve physically crashing through a glass window.

(Compared to the typical description of date crashing, mind, this is far more fun.)

I've slowed down the narration in this section, as you can see, because I wished to give you time to get a picture in your mind of the man who crashed through the window by John's table. Are you imagining him now? Shards of glass caught in his dark curls, blood from small cuts smeared over his skin? Good. Now that you've got that image in mind, let's get back to real-time.

The moment the glass shatters, John cuts off whatever unimportant thing he had been saying mid-sentence. There are sounds of surprise from the other tables in the room; all conversation has ceased, because there is nothing more effective a conversation-breaker than a man crashing through a glass window. John and Jeanette leap out of their seats – Jeanette knocks over her own chair in the process, stumbling backwards a few steps to put distance between herself and the table where the man has just landed. Nearby, a waiter drops a plate in surprise.

The shocked sounds from the other tables are immediately followed by silence. Everyone is staring.

The man who had landed on the table – The Date Crasher – does not take a moment to catch his breath. He doesn't land on the table as much as he slides over it, because it's only a second or so after he hits the table that he rolls off and onto the floor. He lands on his hands and toes like he is doing a push-up, pushes himself off the ground and to his feet, and immediately takes a few steps backwards, away from the table. It's a good thing he does, too, because mere seconds after he vacates the table, a second person – this one much bigger, much more muscular – flies through what used to be a glass window and leaps over the table as well.

This character in our story is bald. His skin is littered with scars that can only be the result of fighting and likely violent crime. You can also see tattoos peering out from underneath his sleeves. If you saw this man in the street, you probably would not think he looked friendly. In fact, if you saw him in the street, you would probably cross the road and walk, or perhaps run, in the other direction – and you would be wise to do so.

Let's give this character a name too, shall we? Let's call him The Attacker. We'll use this name for two reasons. First, it's obvious from his scars that fighting is something he is familiar with, something he has experienced in the past. Second, the title "The Attacker" rather succinctly sums up the man's next movement.

With a primal roar, The Attacker lunges forward towards The Date Crasher. He throws a punch, but fortunately, The Date Crasher is fast enough to duck and dodge the below. Unfortunately, however, The Date Crasher is rather winded from his earlier fall through a glass window, and he's not quite at the top of his game. The next blow hits him straight in the stomach, _hard_. It causes him to double over in pain, and the sheer force of the blow throws him backwards into the counter behind him. The Attacker doesn't give him the chance to catch his breath. He takes advantage of The Date Crasher's weakened position, and he immediately rushes forward for another attack, pinning The Date Crasher back against the counter to stop him from getting away.

Fortunately, The Date Crasher is clever. He knows to use whatever resources he has at his disposal. In this case, what is at The Date Crasher's disposal is a plate of food, neatly presented and sitting on the counter, ready to be taken out to one of the tables. It is the only thing within his reach. The Date Crasher manages to grab a hold of it, and he uses it to hit The Attacker over the head.

The china plate shatters; food falls to the floor. It does not knock The Attacker off his feet or knock him unconscious, or anything else that would put an end to the fight, but it does, at least, have the desired effect of buying The Date Crasher some time. For a moment, The Attacker is dazed. If this were a cartoon, you might see stars, or birds, flying around his head. As this is not cartoon, but instead a much more realistic story, you can tell he is dazed from the glazed look that comes over his eyes.

The Date Crasher takes advantage of the few seconds of time that his actions have granted him. He uses one hand to lift himself up and over the counter, and then he makes a run for the back exit. Unfortunately, having just gone through a glass window, and then having been punched in the stomach, on top of a number of other injuries received over the past several moments (I can tell you, dear reader, that this man received quite a lot of injuries before he came into our story) has had some rather unfortunate impacts on his abilities. He is weakened, and he cannot move as swiftly as he would normally. One arm wraps around his stomach as he runs, and he is bent over in pain. It slows him down.

This is what spurs John Watson into action.

John has always been one of those very unusual people who puts others before himself. You cannot say for certain whether his time spent serving as an army doctor has taught him to put himself in harm's way if it means saving someone else's life, or if it is just his nature, and he chose to become an army doctor because of the kind of person he is. Either way, whatever the reasoning, John is prone to moments of selflessness where he sees someone who is hurt or in danger, and his instinct is to help.

In this case, The Date Crasher is simultaneously hurt and in danger, and John cannot stand by and do nothing. So, when The Attacker recovers from his temporary daze and races after The Date Crasher, John finds himself following without a second thought.

Perhaps you're wondering about John's instincts at this point. You might be thinking that John is crazy for getting involved in this fight at all – and in truth, this is a reasonable thought, and John might very well be more than a little bit crazy. If you're not thinking that he is crazy, however, you might be wondering why John came to the conclusion that The Date Crasher needed to be saved. John doesn't know the context of the fight, doesn't know if "good" and "bad" are as obvious as they seem. John knows that The Date Crasher is a victim of this fight, but he cannot say for sure whether The Date Crasher started it, or did something to provoke it. He has no logical reason to decide that The Date Crasher needs to be saved. So why does John rush out of the restaurant after them?

The answer: instincts. John's actions are not based on any sort of logical thought process, not at this point. He has not had the time to sit down and consider the situation, to weigh up the evidence and make a logical decision regarding his actions. Instead, John is acting on his instincts, and John's instincts tell him that the man who landed upon his table only a mere few moments ago needs his help.

(It's a good instinct, that.)

The Date Crasher reaches the back exit and shoves the door open forcefully as he runs through. The Attacker follows close behind, looking like he would be willing to shove people out of his way if it weren't for the fact that everyone has cleared a path already. The Attacker bursts through the back door, and John follows, managing to slip out before the door falls shut.

I might take a moment here, dear reader, to send a quick message. Perhaps you've heard a similar thing when you've gone to a show, or to a circus: you might have heard the words 'do not try this at home'. If you are ever in a situation like this, when you find yourself witnessing a fight, I highly recommend not doing what John is doing. There are ways in which you can help that do not involve putting yourself in harm's way. Perhaps consider making a phone call to the police, or calling for help elsewhere, from a safe distance away where you will not be brought into the fight. That would be help enough. Your life must still come first.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on whose perspective you are looking from), John's mind does not work like this. John's mind does not prioritise his own safety as he should. The only thoughts running through John's mind are that he needs to help this man, and John really wishes that his gun was tucked away in his back pocket and not hidden in his bedside drawer back at his flat (where it should not be, but that is beside the point).

The gun would make John feel safer, because it would give him the opportunity to defend himself, and The Date Crasher, from afar. He can hold a gun in front of his body and can stand a safe distance back, rather than needing to put himself close to the fight. Having a gun is good, too, because it provides some sort of protection even if you do not have the intention to shoot. The threat is often enough to cause someone to back down. John prefers the threat to the reality of actually shooting, in truth. He is a doctor first and a soldier second. He will not cause harm if there is ever an alternative. However, if it ever came down to it, if John was ever in a situation where he had no choice but to shoot, then he would. If he needed to, then John could, and would defend himself.

And others, if others were involved.

But, John does not have his gun, and there is no point in wishing that he did. It does not matter. John is more than capable of defending himself. It wouldn't be the first time he had gotten into a fist fight.

This is how it plays out:

The Date Crasher's injuries slow him down too much to give him a fighting chance of getting away. Even after being knocked over the head, temporarily dazed and slowed down as a result, The Attacker manages to catch up. They both have a head start over John; by the time John catches up, the fight has already begun again. The Attacker is throwing punches, and The Date Crasher is trying to block them, or duck, or even fight back, but with minimal success. He is already injured, already weak. Alone, it is clear that this is a situation he would not easily get out of. Alone, he might not even get out of this situation alive.

Fortunately, he is not alone.

John wastes no time before rushing forward, all but throwing himself at The Attacker, to cause a shift in The Attacker's attention, from The Date Crasher to John himself. John has a much higher chance of surviving the fight, seeing as he is capable of fighting back. What's more, he is _good_ at fighting back. The Attacker might be bigger than John, but John is better. Maybe not stronger, but better.

The Attacker throws punches, but John knows how to block them. It's almost automatic, unconscious, the way his arms fly up to protect his face and then drop to protect his stomach. He knows how to block a blow with one hand and immediately follow with a punch with the other; he barely has to think about what he is doing.

The Date Crasher stands by the wall, clutching his stomach. He is almost doubled over in pain, but he makes no move to run away. His gaze flickers between the two men engaged in the fight. He seems far more interested in watching the way it plays out than preserving his own safety. It's not the best thing for him to be doing at this point – his interest in the fight shouldn't be stronger than his interest in preserving his own life. However, I can tell you that this particular individual, while being very clever, can be very, very stupid when it comes to his own safety.

As The Date Crasher stands off to the side and watches (much like you are watching the picture that I am painting in your head), the fight continues. For the most part, the moves that John makes are defensive. He is mainly trying to protect himself. Yes, he throws punches too, but for the most part he is blocking hits and trying to keep himself safe. However, as the fight goes on, it becomes clearer and clearer that the fight is not going to stop. The Attacker has stamina, and he is not going to give up unless John makes him.

It's justification for going on the offensive.

The next time The Attacker aims a punch at John's face, John catches the fist and twists. At the same time, he hooks one ankle around the other man's and knocks his leg out from underneath him. It causes the man to fall, yelling out in pain as he does. His arm is sprained. You know this, dear reader, because I have just told you that it is true. John knows this as well, because John is a doctor. He knows how to sprain people.

The fact that John knows it is just a sprain is the very reason why he does not let his guard down. A sprain will not keep a man as apparently dangerous as The Attacker down for long; once the shock of the pain and the sudden fall to the ground has worn off, John has no doubts that the man will be back on his feet and prepared to fight. Maybe he'll have a little bit more trouble, now that his dominant arm has been injured, but John doubts that will stop him from trying. John remains on high alert, ready for the moment when The Attacker gets back on his feet and decides to finish what he started.

Fortunately, this moment never comes. It is mere seconds later, mere seconds after The Attacker has hit the floor when John hears sirens.

John does not let himself find any comfort or reassurance in the sirens as they grow closer and closer. He stands his ground above The Attacker, ready in case The Attacker decides to get back on his feet, sirens or no sirens. You might be thinking that this is reasonable, that it's better to be safe than sorry, and you would be right, because you know by now what The Attacker is capable of. However, I now need you to consider your perspective on this story. You have followed this story from the start. Your knowledge is the reason why you know that John is standing above The Attacker's fallen form because he is trying to protect himself, and The Date Crasher. You know that John is on the right side of this fight.

The policeman and detectives in the cars that pull up on the side of the road do not know this, because they have not followed this story like you have, and they have not had me to tell them who is who. They can only make judgements based on what they see – and what they see is one man (John) standing over another (The Attacker), who is on the ground and is clutching his arm in pain. You can probably imagine that this situation looks a little bit different to an outsider than it does to you and me.

Fortunately, there is one other character in this story who is a bit like you and me. He's certainly not like you and me when it comes to the person he is, because he is one of a kind, but like you and me, he knows how the position that John and The Attacker are in came to be. Even more fortunately, he is the kind of person who police will listen to. He is the kind of person the police trust – to an extent.

The moment the police turn up and get out of their cars, John's hands fly up into a position of surrender, a position that shows he is unarmed and thus a position that he hopes shows he is not a threat. At the same time, The Date Crasher (the man I was referring to in the previous paragraph, which I'm sure you picked up on) takes two stumbling steps forward, still clutching his stomach in pain. "He's with me," he days, and then reiterates, "He's with _me_. You're looking for _him_." The latter 'him' that The Date Crasher refers to is The Attacker, and The Date Crashed clarifies this with a jerk of the head in The Attacker's direction.

(The Attacker, I might add, is still on the ground and looks as though he has just realised he has lost his only chance of escape.)

The police and the detectives look between the man on the ground, The Date Crasher, and John, hesitating for only a moment before they decide that The Date Crasher is to be trusted. (I did tell you, did I not, that this particular character is one that the police are willing to listen to? They don't always listen to him, and they have very good reason for that, but this is one of those occasions when they are willing to take his word.) They stop approaching John and head for The Attacker instead.

Two policemen immediately move to restrain The Attacker, hauling him off the ground. It causes him to grunt in pain, his arm being pulled away from where he was cradling it against his chest, and he turns to John and spits, "You broke my arm, you bastard."

"I sprained it," John says offhandedly, but he regrets the comment as soon as it is out of his mouth because it makes all the police turn to him. Fortunately, before John even has the opportunity to backtrack, The Date Crasher speaks.

"It was self-defence," The Date Crasher says. "I can vouch for that."

The two policemen who were in the process of hauling The Attacker off the ground hesitate for a moment, before going back to their work, showing a little bit more caution around the man's sprained arm (though by no means are they gentle). One policeman – more correctly, a Detective Inspector – remains focussed on The Date Crasher instead of The Attacker. When it is clear that the two other policemen have The Attacker under control, the Detective Inspector takes a few steps over to stand closer to The Date Crasher.

John is still standing close enough to hear their conversation, though with the sounds in the street (including, but not limited to, words shared between the policemen and women, and not-so-friendly words passed from The Attacker to the policemen holding him), he does not hear every word they say. Fortunately, you have your trusty narrator (that's me, by the way, hello) here to tell you the story, and I know exactly what words were said (and, for that matter, exactly what was going through both The Detective Inspector's and The Date Crasher's head, but don't be greedy) and I can narrate it to you with perfect accuracy.

"What happened to not going off on your own?" The Detective Inspector says.

"I had it under control," The Date Crasher replies.

(He most definitely did not have it under control.)

The fact that The Date Crasher is still clutching at his stomach makes it quite clear how not-under-control the situation was, and The Detective Inspector points this out with a wave of his hand towards The Date Crasher's stomach. "It doesn't look like it," he says. "I've called an ambulance now, but if I'd known you'd be injured, I'd have done so much sooner."

"I don't need an ambulance," The Date Crasher says shortly.

(I can tell you that The Date Crasher is not severely injured to the point where an ambulance is essential for his survival, but he does need medical treatment soon.)

While this conversation is occurring, John is beginning to realise that he doesn't know what he's supposed to do in this situation. The Attacker is in handcuffs, The Date Crasher is injured but help is on the way, and then John is just standing there, watching. He doesn't think it's a good idea for him to try to leave the scene, because this is essentially a crime scene and he doesn't want to look like he's sneaking off like a criminal. He assumes he needs to give some sort of statement. At least, his limited knowledge from crime shows tells him that he should probably give some sort of statement.

John clears his throat to get people's attention, and the sound makes both The Date Crasher and The Detective turn to him. It looks as though they may have only just noticed that he is still there.

The Detective turns from John to The Date Crasher and asks, "Who's this, then?"

The question is directed to The Date Crasher more so than it is to John, but John doesn't think The Date Crasher would have any way to answer that question, seeing as he has known John for all of eight minutes or so. Awkwardly, John says, "I'm, uh, I'm nobody. I'm just—"

The Date Crasher interrupts him before he can finish. "He saw that I was injured and rushed to help," he explains. "Moral compass or something of the sort."

The Detective does not look pleased with this explanation. "You dragged a civilian into this?" he says. "It's bad enough you risking your own life, Sherlock—"

The Date Crasher – whom I will henceforth refer to as Sherlock, because I can confirm that this unusual-sounding name that the Detective just gave The Date Crasher is, indeed, this man's birth name (or, more correctly, one of his middle names, but it is the name he goes by) – cuts him off. "While I'm capable of a great many things, compelling a complete stranger to risk his life is not one of them. He came of his own accord. And, at any rate, he's not a civilian. He's a soldier."

John blinks, and then he furrows his brow. "How did you know I was a soldier?" he asks, but Sherlock waves him away with a flick of his hand.

The Detective purses his lips, looking over John briefly before looking back to Sherlock. "He's still a civilian as far as this case goes," he says. "But you're lucky. I'm pretty sure he just saved your life."

"I'm still standing here, you realise," John says.

Neither Sherlock nor The Detective hear him (or care to listen, if they do).

Sherlock waves a hand dismissively in The Detective's direction. "I had it under control," he says.

"Sure as hell doesn't look like it," The Detective says, and then he turns to John (making John very relieved that someone has decided to note his existence). "Right, I'm going to need to get your statement," he says to John, and then he looks back at Sherlock, and adds, "And then we're going to get _you_ to a hospital to get checked out."

"I'm not going to a hospital," Sherlock says.

"Oh, yes you are," The Detective replies.

"No, I'm not."

(John is quite aware of how childish this conversation sounds, but he doesn't comment.)

"Yes, you are," The Detective reiterates, "or you're not on cases for the rest of the month."

Sherlock scoffs. "I'm sure that will last all of a few days before you find another case that you cannot handle and you come begging for me to help."

John clears his throat, the sound stopping The Detective from continuing this argument. John says, "You probably should listen to him. Given how you came smashing through that window, you'd be very lucky to not have any injuries below the skin that need treatment, and you're in a much better place if you get it checked now."

"I'm sure if there was anything severely wrong with me, I'd be in much more pain than I currently am," Sherlock says.

"Not necessarily," John replies. "Adrenaline is a hell of a drug. You should have heard some of the stories we were told in medical school."

"Medical school," Sherlock repeats, and then he watches John carefully. "Army doctor. Should have known."

"If an army doctor is telling you that you need to get checked, you should probably listen to him," The Detective says, and then he looks around, eyes settling on one of the women standing by the police car. "Donovan!" he yells, and the woman makes her way over. When she is close enough, The Detective gestures to Sherlock with a jerk of his head. "Make sure this one doesn't do anything stupid for a few minutes while I take this man's statement."

Both the woman named Donovan and Sherlock look equally disgusted by the idea of having to stand anywhere near each other. In any other situation, Sherlock would have tried to run away, but unfortunately, he cannot do that while he is in this much pain and still catching his breath. The Detective knows this – and it's the only reason why The Detective is willing to leave Sherlock alone with Donovan instead of remaining there himself. In any other situation, The Detective would insist on staying with Sherlock, because it would be the only way to make sure Sherlock stayed put. It would be a stretch to say that Sherlock respects The Detective, but The Detective does have some hold over him. They have a history. The Detective is a rather large part of the reason why Sherlock had not died of an overdose in a gutter somewhere several years ago.

That's another story. Let's get back to the point.

The Detective leads John out of the way so they have some relative privacy and quiet while John gives his statement. He is honest throughout, because he figures that's the best thing he can be. He hasn't done anything wrong, he reminds himself as he talks. Yes, he sprained a man's wrist, but it was self-defence. He explains that his only intentions were to protect himself, that spraining the man's wrist was accidental, which is a little bit of a stretch of the truth, because John did intend to injure the man just enough to stop the man from doing any more harm to John, but that barely counts as a lie. All the same, The Detective seems to understand.

When John is done recounting his story, when it is clear that The Detective has no more questions of clarification to ask, John asks a question of his own. "Who was he?" he asks, gesturing to where The Attacker had been taken to one of the police cars waiting for him on the street.

The Detective follows his gaze, even though he knows exactly who John was talking about even without needing to look over his shoulder. The reason why he does this is to buy himself some time before he needs to come up with a way to best explain the situation to someone who isn't directly involved with the police. In the end, he says, "He's a member of an organisation that we've been following for several months now."

The tone of The Detective's voice tells John that there is little point in pressing the subject further, because that's about as detailed an answer as he is going to get. He assumes that this organisation is a drug cartel, or a group of smugglers or some form. He is wrong – the organisation is question is much, much wider than that, and much more dangerous than you would think, but I could spend thousands and thousands of words telling you all about that.

For now, let's focus on our own story as it begins to come to its end. The Detective dismisses John with a nod of his head and a reminder that The Detective will contact John if there are any further questions, but for the moment being, John is free to go. John steps away from The Detective, and looks around, eyes seeking out Sherlock, who is still standing next to Donovan where he was left. Their eyes lock for a second, and John realises that Sherlock has been staring at him.

Sherlock mutters something to Donovan that makes her cross her arms over her chest and glare for a moment, but then she looks towards John and sighs. Sherlock steps past her, and she doesn't try to stop him. He walks the few steps over to John, joining him before John has the opportunity to leave. "Most people would not have put themselves in harm's way for a complete stranger," he states.

"No, they probably wouldn't," John agrees.

Sherlock tilts his head to the side, examining John carefully. There's something in his eyes that makes John feel like he's being cut open and examined from the inside out. "Why?" Sherlock asks after a pause. "You didn't know the circumstances of the fight. You didn't know what I had done to provoke it, if anything. And yet, you decided I was worth saving, even if it meant getting hurt in the process."

John cannot say why for sure. Instinct is funny like that. John doesn't know why he made the decision to go after Sherlock and The Attacker, because he never made the decision at all – one moment he was eating dinner, the next he was saving a man's life. He shrugs his shoulders. "I just had a feeling," he says.

Sherlock lets out a pensive hum. After a brief pause, he says, "Well, I doubt your girlfriend would have liked your feeling very much," he says.

At the words, John's eyes widen, almost comically. "Jeanette," he says under his breath. He left her behind. He had hardly even realised it. In the commotion and the action, she had completely slipped his mind. He hadn't even thought about what she must be thinking, left alone at the restaurant. He looks around, and then says, "I have to go."

He's already given his statement, so no one tries to stop him as he turns and walks – and then runs – away.

By the time John gets to the restaurant, Jeanette is long gone. A waiter tells him as much when John asks; the waiter explains that Jeanette had left in a huff, and John goes home feeling like that was well-deserved. Due to the way in which I have told you this story, I know you may very well be on John's side here, and you may think that Jeanette was being unreasonable, but I ask you to consider the situation from Jeanette's perspective. If you were in her shoes, and your date had suddenly run off after a violent fight without another word, and had not made any effort to contact you for a considerable time afterwards, and had not answered your several phone calls – well, leaving in a huff is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

John sends her a text when he gets home (when calling her fails), which he spends some time drafting and redrafting. He explains to her what happened, both with regards to the reason why he had chased after Sherlock and The Attacker as well as what had happened after he had gotten through the back door. He apologises profusely, and tells her that he did have a very nice time with her (even though that's a lie, and he actually felt quite awkward throughout the night) and that he would like to see her again.

The latter part isn't quite a lie – the date was awkward, yes, but John holds in his heart the hope that it was no more awkward than any first date would be. Jeanette seems like a lovely woman, and maybe if he gave her time, if they spent more time together, the initial awkwardness would fade.

John doesn't receive a reply from Jeanette that night, and there is nothing on his phone when he wakes up the next morning (although that's hardly a surprise, seeing as getting up as early as John does is not often something people do unless they have a military history like him). It's mid-morning when he does receive a lengthy reply back, which essentially tells him that Jeanette had never felt so humiliated and so worried, and she does not believe that she could be in a relationship with someone whom she does not trust and someone who does not give her some sort of feeling of stability. She finishes the text by asking John not to call her again.

It's upsetting, yes, but John realises very quickly that the reason he is upset is not because he has lost Jeanette specifically, but rather because this is another potential relationship that has gone down the drain. Maybe it's better that she doesn't want to see him again, he thinks, because it's not fair to her if he tried to maintain some sort of relationship when he preferred the concept of that relationship to the relationship itself.

But don't worry, dear reader, because I will not finish this story on a break up. I told you, did I not, that John would meet someone in this story with whom he would just _click_ , like they were meant to be, and he did. That first meeting with Sherlock was not the last. Several weeks later, there is a second meeting where Sherlock turns up at John's front door quite injured and begging for somewhere to hide. This quickly turns into a series of adventures that involve John moving into Sherlock's flat and saving Sherlock's life on multiple occasions, while Sherlock investigates gripping murders and awes John with series of deductions that prove he is capable of paying attention to even the tiniest details and building a story out of that.

But _that's_ another story.


	27. Social Experiments

**Author's Note:** A million thanks to the world's most brilliant beta, Becca (Ao3's LlamaWithAPen).

* * *

Prompt from guest "autocorrect": _Sherlock starts a club as a cover for a social experiment. John is the only one who realizes his motivations, OR, John is the only one who shows up._

 **Social Experiments**

The chairs in the common room are grouped into small circles – three to six chairs to a group. The desks have been pushed to the side, out of the way, with the exception of five desks that have been set up in a row at the front. Tins of biscuits, bowls of chips, plates of cupcakes and cans of soft drink are spread out in a junk food feast. The room looks set up for a party, ready to cater for at least two dozen people.

Total number of people in the room: one.

The single person in the room is a first-year university student by the name of Sherlock Holmes, and Sherlock Holmes is responsible for the set-up of the room as previously described. Sherlock Holmes is a tall, lanky young man in his early twenties, with dark curls and bright eyes and a dissatisfied expression on his face.

You might think, based on this, that Sherlock Holmes is a social individual. You might think that he is extroverted, in that he finds pleasure through the interaction with other people, and he enjoys parties and gatherings such as the one for which this room seems to be prepared. You would think wrong. Sherlock Holmes is not extroverted. Quite the opposite – he almost always chooses to work alone or spend time alone, and he does not enjoy spending time with other people. He finds the topics that interest most of his peers dull, and he finds the speed at which their minds work frustrating, because interacting with other people means slowing himself down to give them time to catch up, which is a waste of his time and his energy. Sherlock does not crave social interaction like an extroverted individual might, and he does not find social interaction enjoyable.

Why, then, would a person like Sherlock Holmes have gone to the effort of rearranging the furniture in one of the classrooms, and setting out plates of food for a social gathering?

The answer is simple: it was for an experiment.

When Sherlock had first enrolled in his classes at the beginning of the year, he had been one course short. The number of chemistry classes that were offered to first-year students did not fill up the requisite number of courses for a full-time work load. In the interest of not unnecessarily extending his degree by a semester to make up for the one course that he missed in his first year, Sherlock opted to take an additional course outside his area of interest (chemistry). He chose a course that was still science-based (because Sherlock thought he might pull his hair out if he tried an arts course), and one particular science-based course offered a course schedule that was compatible with the courses in which Sherlock had already enrolled: psychology.

This was the reason Sherlock initially chose to take a first-year psychology course. The hours were compatible with his timetable, and it would be less subjective than an arts course (even though it would be more subjective than the kind of hard sciences that Sherlock was used to). Sherlock didn't really expect to enjoy the course – he just thought it would be one that he would force his way through until the semester finally finished, at which point he could fill up his timetable exclusively with chemistry courses. To Sherlock's surprise, however, the psychology course ended up being one of Sherlock's favourites. Sherlock's plan for the future is to become a consulting detective – a career path he invented himself, because being a normal detective, who has to investigate cases even when they're boring, and who has to do paperwork, doesn't interest him at all. While the classic psychological experiments and theories covered in the course were far more abstract than anything that Sherlock would deal with in his future career, he could still see how the topics were related. He could see how some of the theories they covered in class explained human behaviour, and how it might explain the actions of criminals that Sherlock would one day put behind bars. Importantly, also, Sherlock found the course interesting – which was impressive, seeing as Sherlock has always been very picky about what he allows to remain in his head and occupy his attention.

Now, for some students (for a great many students, in fact), what they do in class is enough. They might find a subject interesting, but they are content to learn about it by attending lectures or doing the required readings, or maybe even going a little bit above and beyond and doing some readings in their own time. Sherlock, however, is not like most people. He isn't willing to take someone else's words, to trust everything he reads and be satisfied that that's enough. When something interests Sherlock, he wants to know everything that there is to know about it, and he isn't willing to trust someone else's claims – not when there is an alternative.

Peer-reviewed journals might be reliable sources, but that does not mean that the authors are without bias. Just because something isn't a lie doesn't mean it tells the whole story, either. This is why Sherlock's kitchen tends to resemble a laboratory at the best of times – why should Sherlock trust the research that he reads about when an experiment is simple enough to replicate? Not only does that give Sherlock the opportunity to test someone else's claims, but it's also something he finds interesting, even enjoyable. That, and often the process of replicating an experiment sparks ideas and inspiration for other experiments, maybe even things that no one else has tried.

Up until now, all of the experiments that Sherlock has conducted have been related to chemistry. Now, however, Sherlock has other sorts of ideas, other sources of inspiration for other kinds of experiments. Psychology is just another science; human beings are just another sort of variable. If anything, psychological experiments need replicating even more so than chemistry experiments, because human beings can be remarkably changeable at the best of times.

There are some psychological experiments that Sherlock knows he could never replicate. For some, he does not have the resources – he does not have access, for instance, to EEGs or fMRIs or the precise sets of visual stimuli used in perceptual experiments. In other cases, Sherlock could not replicate particular experiments because of the ethical issues associated with them – such as the Little Albert experiment, where the researchers conditioned an infant to fear fluffy, white objects by making a loud noise behind his head every time he was exposed to a white rat. (Sherlock could not replicate the Little Albert experiment both because there were now rules around the ethical considerations of psychological research and also because he doubted anyone would be willing to lend him their baby for science). However, there are a number of psychological experiments that Sherlock can try to replicate, and a number of theories and phenomena that Sherlock can test, with the only necessary resource being the participants themselves.

This is the reason why Sherlock tried to start a social club – not for the enjoyment, not for the company, but because Sherlock needed a way to get participants for his experiments. Up until perhaps an hour ago, Sherlock believed that the idea was a genius one. Students on campus were willing to pay for membership to social clubs, purely so that they could go to events or have access to a certain common room on campus. Surely that meant that they would be more than willing to come to Sherlock's club, for which they did not need to pay. Sherlock had even promised them free food, because nothing gets a university student out of bed like the promise of free food.

Sherlock had carefully considered everything. He had spent time creating a poster that looked similar enough to the posters for other social clubs to be believable, while still standing out enough to get people's attention. He had studied the university timetabling website, to work out what timeslot would mean that the maximum number of people were on campus (so, not early morning and not late evening) but also that had the minimum number of classes running (he had made sure that the classes that were running were primarily drama classes, because actors probably were not the ideal participant for a social experiment, unless Sherlock detailed how he wanted them to act). He had made sure that the time did not clash with any of the other major clubs' meetings. He had chosen a room on campus that was fairly central, so no one would have to go searching the far ends of the university to find it. In a nutshell, he had done everything right.

And yet, it didn't work. Sherlock has been waiting there in the room he booked for over an hour now. He booked the room for the whole afternoon – once his participants arrived, he wanted to have as much time as possible to study their interactions. Having the entire afternoon set aside also meant that people who had classes that clashed with the start of the meeting time could turn up later. This way, Sherlock could maximise the number of potential participants that could come to his meeting.

Sherlock hadn't been worried when no one turned up on time. These were university students he was dealing with. University students were almost never on time for anything. Now that it has been over an hour, however, Sherlock is worried. No, not worried – frustrated. Sherlock is frustrated because he has now given people enough time to turn up even if they were running late, or even if they had classes first, or even if they just didn't like the idea of being on time and risking being the first to arrive. It's been over an hour. It's safe to assume by now that no one is going to turn up.

Frustrated, Sherlock storms to the open front door that leads out into the courtyard, where he had taped another copy of his poster, so that people knew they had come to the right room. That was another thing that Sherlock has taken into consideration – and another waste of time. He snatches the poster off the door and takes his anger out on it by crumpling it into a ball and hurling it across the courtyard.

Or, at least, Sherlock tries to hurl the crumpled up poster across the courtyard. However, he does not look before he takes aim and throws with all his might. Had he looked first, he would have noticed the young man who was standing in the courtyard, right where Sherlock throws the poster.

One possible course of action that could have followed is that the poster could have hit the man in the head, which would not cause any sort of injury but, with most people, would lead to anger that may then be taken out on Sherlock. Sherlock is no stranger to harsh words or the occasional physical display of hatred. Fortunately for Sherlock, this is not the situation that plays out. With impressive reflexes, the man in the courtyard raises one hand and catches the crumpled poster before it can hit him in the face. When he looks up to meet Sherlock's eyes, the expression on his face is not one of annoyance or anger. If anything, he looks amused.

"You realise there's a rubbish bin inside the room, right?" the young man says amicably.

"I wasn't aiming for the bin," Sherlock mutters.

"Clearly," says the man. "Were you aiming to take my eye out?"

"A piece of paper is hardly likely to cause severe enough an injury to blind you," says Sherlock, "but regardless, that was not my intention either."

As he speaks, the man unfolds the poster, eyes skimming over it briefly before looking back up at Sherlock again. "So you were just taking out your frustrations on the poor, unsuspecting poster, were you?"

Sherlock opts to not comment on the descriptors that preceded the poster in that sentence, and instead just mutters, "Something like that."

He turns to head back into the room, thinking that turning his back is probably a good way to bring the conversation to a close, but the man is, apparently, not quite deterred yet. He follows Sherlock up to the doorway, and tosses the crumpled up poster inside – where it lands perfectly in the wastepaper basket. When that is done, the man leans sideways against the doorframe. Out of the corner of his eyes, Sherlock can see the man looking at the feast that Sherlock has set out at the front of the room.

"I think you bought too much food," the man says after a moment.

"I prepared exactly the correct amount of food for the amount of people I anticipated turning up," Sherlock says tightly.

"Ah," the man says, as though the spoken sentence has shed light on something for him. "That explains your frustration and the fact that you tried to take my eye out with a poster."

"I didn't try to take your eye out."

"Course not," says the man. After a beat, he asks, "Is all that food going to go to waste now?"

Sherlock chooses to answer the unspoken question lying beneath that sentence. "Help yourself," he says, and the man does just that, stepping into the room and picking up one of the paper plates. It's better that the man takes some of the food that Sherlock has set up for his failed attempt of a club. That way it feels like slightly less of a waste. Whatever is leftover is going straight into the bin anyway; Sherlock isn't going to eat any of it.

The man grabs a couple of biscuits and a cupcake, putting it onto his plate. Sherlock reaches for a biscuit himself; instead of eating it, he turns it over and examines it as though it holds the answer to all the questions that have filled his head over the past hour or so. After a moment, he says, "I thought university students were willing to do anything for free food."

The man smirks around a mouthful of cupcake. "Usually, they are," he says.

"Then why not come here?" Sherlock asks, not expecting a proper answer. "Why not join my club?"

"You mean your social experiment?" the man asks, and Sherlock's brain screeches to halt.

If the situations were reversed – if someone else, like this man, had set up a club and Sherlock was the one to turn up and view the poster, then Sherlock has no doubt that he would be able to tell that the social club was a fake, designed for a social experiment. Sherlock is smart. He's good at working out things about people that might not be immediately apparent to most people. This is what makes Sherlock different. That, of course, is the key word in that sentence – different. Sherlock is not used to other people being able to make the deductions that he makes, and certainly not when he himself cannot work out what it is that gave him away, what observation could have led to such a deduction.

He considers the layout of the room, but although the room had been carefully constructed to allow for small circles of social interaction for Sherlock to observe, the room does not look at all unusual for a common room or any other sort of club meeting room. He considers his poster, but Sherlock spent so much time crafting that poster so that it did not stand out from the other club posters as something _not real_ , so Sherlock does not believe he missed anything there. In short, he does not know what the man before him has seen that gave away the fact that Sherlock's club is not a real club at all. The implication, of course, is that the man can see something Sherlock cannot, and that – that is frustrating. _No one_ can see something that Sherlock can't.

(No one except perhaps Sherlock's brother, but that doesn't count.)

He doesn't want to admit defeat, but Sherlock has to know. Not knowing is worse than admitting defeat. Finally, he asks, "How can you tell?" and the man responds with a grin.

"Lucky guess," the man says, and Sherlock purses his lips in frustration, because that is not an answer – certainly not one that Sherlock is at all willing to accept.

"It can't just be a guess. Something put the idea in your mind, even if you were uncertain about it. What was it?"

The grin remains on the man's face. It seems to hold a number of different emotions in the expression. Sherlock can identify amusement and smugness, and something else, though he can't quite put his finger on it. "You're Sherlock Holmes," the man says at last, and this answer is even more frustrating than the first, because once again, it does not actually explain how the man came to his conclusion, and it _also_ means that the man knows who Sherlock is, when Sherlock isn't sure he's ever seen the man before in his life.

Sherlock does not need to speak, to ask any of the questions that this non-response brings to his mind, because they must show on his face. The man almost seems to read his mind, answering the questions that never leave Sherlock's lips. "We're in the same psychology class," he says. "You've got a bit of a reputation, you know. I was surprised to see your name on a poster for what looked like a social event. I don't think I've ever seen you even spend time with people in class, let alone go to an event."

"And so you made the leap to conclude that I had designed a club for the mere purpose of a social experiment?"

The man smiles again. "Like I said, it was a lucky guess. Helps that I'm friends with Greg, though."

"Who?" Sherlock asks.

The man frowns at Sherlock's need for clarification. "Greg," he repeats. "Greg Lestrade, from psychology? I know you spend time with him sometimes."

That explains it. "Oh, Lestrade," Sherlock says, and then he frowns once again. "How does he come into this?"

"I've heard him talk about you before."

"Lestrade talks about me?"

"Everyone talks about you. That's kind of what I mean by you having a reputation. Anyway, Greg's had a few stories about you blowing up things in the chemistry lab whenever you're trying to do experiments. Given we're both taking psychology, it wasn't a huge leap to think that maybe this club, given how... out of character it seems for you, might be related to some sort of experiment as well."

Sherlock looks the man up and down, raising his eyebrows. After a long silence, he says, "You're smarter than you look." It makes the man laugh.

"Thank you, I think?" he says. "I can't work out if that's a compliment or an insult."

"It's neither," Sherlock says. After a beat, he asks, "You have me at something of a disadvantage. You know my name, but I don't know yours."

"No surprises there," the man says. "I don't have a reputation like you do. I'm John. John Watson."

"John Watson," Sherlock repeats. No wonder he did not know this man's name before now. Both 'John' and 'Watson' are remarkably common names, and until now, Sherlock has had no reason to save it in his mind. If he has ever met this man before, or heard his name, then Sherlock has, of course, dismissed him as unimportant and deleted him.

Sherlock won't delete him this time.

After a pause, Sherlock asks, "Is this the reason for my lack of success? Everyone managed to work out that this was nothing more than a social experiment?"

"I doubt it," John Watson says, pulling up a chair and sliding into it. This action is interesting, given the implications – if John is sitting, it may very well be because he is willing to stay for a little while, to continue this conversation. John continues, "I worked it out because I know you through Greg, and Greg knows that you like conducting experiments. I don't know if that would really be common knowledge." He pauses for a moment, hesitates, and then says, "Although – no offence – your reputation might be the reason why no one turned up."

Sherlock takes no offence in this. He knows he is not the most well-liked of people. Perhaps putting his own name on the flyer was the wrong idea.

A thought flies briefly through Sherlock's head – if he tried this again, he would know better than to put his name on the poster. That might be enough to bring more people to his club. However, if Sherlock was to ever try this again, not only would he have to remake the poster and go to all the effort he had put in this time around, to make sure that it was attention-grabbing while not looking like it was for a social experiment, but in addition, he would have to make it different enough to the poster that he made for this attempt, in case anyone recognises it and knows he is involved.

Tedious. Maybe he should just stick to chemicals. That's what he is used to, after all. People are far too complicated.

Sherlock realises halfway through this thought process that John is talking. He manages to tune in just in time to catch the end of John's sentence: "—to do?"

"Hmm?"

"What were you going to do?" John repeats. "What was your experiment going to be about?"

"Experiments," Sherlock corrects. "Had enough people turned up, I would not have been conducting just one. To start off with, I was going to study the way you interacted naturally. That way I could form some sort of baseline, understand how you interacted with one another without any interventions from me. Then I could see the effects of my own manipulations. I was also intending to replicate some of the experiments we covered in class, and to see what minor changes to the methodology might do to the results, or simply to see if the results were the same with a different sample."

"What experiments?" John asks, and he's sitting on the edge of his seat, looking attentive and actually _interested_ in what Sherlock has to say. This comes as a surprise, but certainly a good one. Although Sherlock is not a fan of spending time with people, he does actually enjoy talking – especially when it means he can talk about his experiments or his deductions and show off his intelligence. He's a show-off, that's what he does.

He slides into a seat across from John, and they launch into a lengthy discussion about many of the experiments that they have covered in class. While there is no way that John could be as clever as Sherlock is, John has been attending the same lectures as Sherlock, and so Sherlock does not need to slow himself down to explain context or describe any of the experiments. He can say words like _Bandura's Bobo Doll Experiment_ or _Asch's Line Study_ , and John knew exactly what he was talking about.

They lose time in conversations of several of the psychology experiments that they have covered in class, and the ways in which some of these experiments could be replicated or altered slightly, and what they thought it might do with the results. They debate the ethical consideration in Milgram's Obedience Studies, where Milgram led participants to believe that they were administering harmful electrical shocks to another person, just to see how far people were willing to go to do what they were told. They discuss the controversial findings of Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment, where Zimbardo assigned perfectly ordinary college boys to the roles of 'prisoners' and 'guards' to recreate a prison scenario, and had to cancel the experiment after only six days because the 'guards' became cruel and sadistic and continuing the study became unethical.

They bounce ideas off each other without realising that that is what they're doing, sentences gliding down different tracks, leading to ideas that they will likely never end up using, and yet it is enjoyable just to come up with them. They lose track of the time like that – or, at least, Sherlock does, and while they're talking, the frustration that came with his failed attempt at gathering participants fades away.

"You know," John says after they've talked through a few hypothetical experiments or replications, "You could actually do some of these experiments. Not in first year, but in a few years, if you do post-grad study or a research project course or something. You could actually try to replicate some of these."

"I don't intend to continue studying psychology into the future," Sherlock says. "It's interesting, but my primary interest lies in the hard sciences. I'm only taking this course because I had no other options this semester; from next semester onwards my schedule will consist entirely of chemistry-based courses."

"Oh," John says. "Really? Given you're so interested in it that you're actually trying to conduct an experiment in your own time, I was sure psychology was going to be at least a minor, if not a major."

Sherlock shakes his head. "No, I'm just doing this to pass the time. I didn't expect to find psychology as enjoying as I have. I thought it would be too... subjective."

"I get that," John says with a nod of his head. "It's kind of different to any other science course."

Sherlock looks him over briefly. "I gather you yourself are not majoring in psychology," he says, and John nods.

"Nope," he says. "I'm doing mostly biology and chemistry subjects as well. I'm doing medical science."

Sherlock tips his head to the side. "I didn't think I'd seen you in any of my chemistry or biology courses," he says.

John smirks. "You didn't think I was in your psychology class, either," he points out. "They're big classes, so I'm not surprised you don't know everyone who is in them. Plus, you seem to be the sort of person to ignore anything around you that you don't think is important."

It's not entirely accurate - Sherlock doesn't _ignore_ the world around him, and is actually very observant. He just deletes anything he observes that he does not think is important. He has probably noticed John in his class before, but decided he wasn't worth remembering.

(That has changed, now. John is worth remembering now.)

Rather than explaining the way Sherlock's mind works, however, he simply says, "Something like that."

After a moment, John gets to his feet. "I better go – I do actually have class. Thanks for the food, though."

"Don't mention it," Sherlock says. "It would have gone to waste otherwise."

"Not going to save it and have another attempt at starting a club?"

"Certainly not any time soon," Sherlock said. "I'll go back to chemicals. At least they do what I expect them to do."

John's lips quirk up into a smile. "Fair point," he says. "I'll see you around, Sherlock. It was nice to properly meet you."

"You too," Sherlock replies, and he finds he means it.

At least something positive came out of his failed attempt of a club.

* * *

 **Author's Note** : I'm a psychology graduate (and a psychology nerd), and this fic was a particularly good excuse to just geek out about psychology experiments. All experiments mentioned in this fic are real experiments (yes, including the marvelously disturbing Little Albert experiment) and I am completely open to talking about them in more detail if anyone is interested.


	28. Walking in the Woods

**Author's Note** : A million thanks to the world's best beta, Becca (Ao3's LlamaWithAPen).

* * *

Prompt from user Aelaer: _John meets Sherlock by saving him from his captors. If you want a potential idea as to how to make that happen, maybe John took to urban exploration of abandoned areas once he discovered his limp improved with adrenaline rushes? He then hears a car, and sees from a distance that a man is obviously there against his will._

 **Walking in the Woods**

The orange sun is low in the sky. The trees are too tightly packed together for it to cast much of a glow through the gaps. Shadows stretch over the ground, over leaves and twigs and dirt. It's quiet. The only sounds are that of the occasional breeze whispering by, rustling the leaves on the trees.

It's eerie. This is exactly why John is here.

Though no one could have predicted it, this is what helps his limp – the result of his time serving in Afghanistan. He was wounded in his shoulder, but the pain was in his leg. He needed a cane, and he leaned heavily on it with every step he took.

 _Psychosomatic_ , said his therapist. John hadn't believed her at the time.

He had gone to therapy. He had talked about symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, about sleepless nights, nightmares, and a pain in his leg with no apparent physical cause. He tried a sort of exposure therapy, by talking about some of the most painful memories he had, bringing them to the forefront of his mind so that he could deal with them in the safe space of his therapist's office. It didn't help.

He went to physical therapy, too, even though his therapist insisted that the pain was not really physical. He tried various stretches, tried walking regularly, but it was for nothing. He had no success there either.

The cure, as it turned out, was adrenaline. Neither John's therapist nor his physical therapist could have figured that one out. John had only made the discovery by accident. He had taken a walk in the park after the sun had set. He had heard a woman scream, turned in time to see a man with her purse running towards him. John had been knocked to the ground in the man's haste to get away. Automatically, as if on autopilot, John had rushed to his feet and followed. He hadn't realised that his cane was still on the ground until both he and the perpetrator were several blocks away, and he realised that he had run the entire route without even a spike of pain.

He told his therapist about it the following week. He can still remember the mild surprise that showed on her face. She had concluded it was the adrenaline that explained it. John's body had gone into a fight or flight response, and it had gotten rid of the pain. That, and there was the distraction – it was something else for his mind to focus on. So much of his attention had been on the man he was chasing, he had not had the time to realise that he was in pain.

It was hardly a normal treatment, but John's therapist had said that they could use it.

John took up different hobbies. He could finally start exercising again, now without a cane holding him back. He sought out activities that focussed his mind, activities that caused a flood of adrenaline through his body. Some of them were suggested by his therapist; others John had found on his own. The one that John liked best, he didn't tell her about, because he wasn't sure she would approve.

It was more than just walking, like his physical therapist had suggested all those months ago. Walking was good, but it didn't produce that rush of adrenaline that he needed if he just walked through the park or through the streets of London. John only got that rush of adrenaline if he walked somewhere that was potentially unsafe. Abandoned areas. Woods. Places at night, when it is dark and quiet and eerie. When the sun starts to set, and he is alone, he feels some sort of instinct to stay on high alert. He has never really been in any danger, but there is the possibility of it, and that possibility is what keeps his heart pounding and makes him hypervigilant to any sound. He walks, and he explores, when it is late in the evening, and the possibility that he might not be safe out there keeps the pain from his leg.

Leaves and twigs crunch beneath his feet. He pushes branches out of his path. He's been walking for almost half an hour, now, which means it's time to turn around and follow the path back again before he finds himself hopelessly lost in the dark. He's sure a situation like that would lead to a lot of adrenaline, but he's pretty sure being lost in the dark is just not worth it.

He turns, and then he hears a noise. He cannot quite identify it. A scuffle of some sort. It might have been a footstep. It doesn't come from John's own feet.

He freezes, and he listens. It might be nothing. It might be an animal, or the wind, or something else non-threatening. It might not be anything to worry about.

Again, he hears the noise. This time, in the shadows, he can see movement, approaching. Whatever is approaching is tall enough human. If it's not human, then it's a dangerously large animal. Either way, the situation is not great.

 _Hide_.

John makes a split second decision and ducks behind the nearest tree. He presses his back against the trunk and holds his breath. _Don't move. Don't breathe. Don't make a sound_.

More scuffles, more footsteps, and then a voice. Human, then, not an animal. At least two humans, actually, because he can hear a conversation, two different voices bouncing off one another.

Why are they out here so late? It's not safe to be out here so late.

(John knows he's a hypocrite.)

He hesitates, and then shifts, very slightly. He leans sideways and he peers out from behind the tree.

It's not two people, he realises now that he can see them. It's three. They're close together – unnecessarily so. It's almost hard to tell where one person ends and another begins. One of them is holding a torch to light their path. Light shines over the ground.

John watches. One of the men – the one in the centre – is not walking like the other two are. His feet are dragging along the ground. He is being held up by the two men either side of him.

No, John realises. He's not just being held up. He is being _held_.

John leans without realising he is doing so, trying to get a better look. He has to move his foot to keep his balance. This is his mistake. Something makes a sound beneath his foot, and the light from the torch quickly moves towards the source of the noise, towards the tree, towards John. John immediately ducks behind the tree and holds his breath once again. _Don't move, don't breathe, don't move, don't breathe_.

The trees ahead of John are lit up briefly as the torchlight moves from one side of his tree to the other. Searching, checking. John tries to make himself small, smaller than the trunk that is currently hiding his body from view. He presses his arms to his sides and his feet together. _Don't move._

Then, there is a voice from behind him. "Come on, let's go," it says – male voice – and then there is darkness as the torch is withdrawn. John waits, hesitates, and then carefully – more carefully than last time – he moves to lean out from behind the tree again. Light now illuminates the men's path, away from John. He is safe.

John is safe, but the man in the middle is clearly not safe. He is being restrained, practically being dragged. Maybe he's drunk, or drugged. In one way or another, he is incapacitated. He is not safe.

There is no way to know for sure why they are here, what the relationship is between the three men, and why the man in the middle is being dragged. There is no way of knowing where they are going. However, it is safe to assume that what the two men on the outside will do to the man in the middle when they reach their destination will not be good. Wherever they are heading, it will be private. It will be quiet, isolated. They could torture or kill the man in the middle without anyone hearing a thing.

Anyone except John.

It's safe to assume that the two conscious men on the outside of the trio are dangerous. They are clearly able to incapacitate someone – even someone who is taller than both of them, as the man in the middle looks like he would be at his full height. It is safe to assume that they have weapons, either used to incapacitate the man in the first place or to use when they reach their destination. It's safe to assume that anyone who gets involved would be in danger too.

The men do not know that John is here. They did not see him when he accidentally made a sound from behind the tree. They do not know that he is there. He could wait until the sound of footsteps is gone, and then creep the other way. He could be out of the woods before they even noticed that, for a moment, they were not alone. He would be safe.

But there is no way that John would ever be all right with that. John cannot prioritise his own safety and creep away now while he has the chance, not when he knows that there is someone who is in even more danger, someone who may very well die if John does not help.

John has to do something. He cannot just stand there and do nothing.

He follows.

John does not follow the direct path of the other men. That would be too obvious. He stays behind trees, where he can duck and hide if need be, if the torchlight shines in his direction once more. He keeps his footsteps as quiet as he can manage. The woods aren't silent – there is the occasional sound of wind, of animals in the trees. A quiet noise can be dismissed as nothing more than the sounds of nature around them. If he keeps quiet enough, then no one will know he is here.

Ahead, the two men on either side of the trio are talking. They're just slightly too far away, their voices too muffled, for John to be able to make out more than a few words. _Boss_ is audible. So is _job_. So is something that sounds a little bit like the word _homes_.

John wishes he had his gun. It's stashed away in his drawer. Technically, he's not supposed to have it at all. Next time he'll bring it, just in case anything like this ever happens again. Maybe it will help with the adrenaline, feeling the gun against his back and thinking that he might actually need to use it to protect himself or someone else. Maybe it will make him feel better. And it would definitely be good to have it if he ever is in a situation like this again.

It's unlikely he'll ever be in a situation like this again. He might not make it out of this one alive.

His heart is pounding against his ribcage. His leg is in no pain.

He follows as closely as he can manage without being seen or heard. He does not want to risk losing sight of them through the densely-packed trees. John cannot guarantee that he will be able to save the man, but he's pretty sure he can guarantee that the man will have no chance of survival if he is alone.

As they move further, the trees start to become a little less dense. John slows a bit so that he is a little further behind, a little less likely to be seen when he is out in the open, moving between each of the trees. What they come to is not quite a clearing, but more of an opening – some space where the trees are not so tightly together. The men enter this opening, and they shove the man in the centre to his knees, forcefully. This man is weak. He does not even manage to kneel; instead, he immediately falls in a heap.

"Pathetic," says the man on the left. It's easier to hear him now that they are relatively out in the open. "Thought the boss told us to be careful with this one. He said it'd be difficult."

The man on the right walks over to the one that is now in a heap on the ground. He grabs a handful of dark curls on the man's head and yanks his head back, hard. The man on the ground barely flinches. "I'm a little bit disappointed," the man on the right says. "You'd think a druggie would have a bit of a higher tolerance."

"And this is the Great Sherlock Holmes," says the man on the left, mocking. "God knows what the boss saw in this one. Come on. Let's finish the job and get home."

He reaches into the back of his trousers, and John can see the outline of a gun even before it's been fully removed from the man's waistband.

There will be no time once the gun is firmly in the man's hand, pointed straight at the head of the fallen man in the middle. John might be fast, but he isn't faster than a bullet. It's now or never.

John launches himself at the man from behind. He barrels straight into his back, the force coupled with the man's surprise knocking them both to the ground. The man loses his grip on the gun and it falls from his fingers. John does not give him the opportunity to reclaim it. He used the moment of surprise that he has and the momentum to roll them further away from the gun, and he tries to pin the man down on the ground.

The advantage that John has from taking the man by surprise does not last long, and then it is down to strength alone. John is no stranger to physical combat. By the looks of things, neither is this man. Together, they throw punches and kicks; they use their weight and momentum to roll into different positions, to try to pin one another to the ground. They are fairly evenly matched. Neither stays on the ground for very long at a time.

The man's fist collides with John's left cheek. Pain blossoms through his jaw. There will be a bruise there tomorrow. However, he finds he hardly notices, pain masked by fear and adrenaline. If he does not win this fight, a bruise to his left cheek will not matter in the slightest.

He retaliates with a punch to the man's jaw, with enough force behind it to turn the man's head. The man responds in kind, and it's a flurry of movement, fists colliding with faces, yells of pain ringing out in the silence. John manages to regain control of the situation for long enough to return them to their earlier position – John on top, using his weight to keep the man on the ground, but at some point during their fight, the man has managed to pull another weapon from somewhere. It's not his gun – that still lies on the ground a little way away from them – but instead, it's a syringe. John has no way of knowing what it contains, but he definitely does not want to be injected with it.

John is a doctor first and a soldier second. John wants to save lives, not take them. If there is ever an alternative to causing harm, John will not cause harm. However, this time, there is no alternative. The man with whom he is fighting will not hesitate to kill John. John has to defend himself.

They wrestle on the ground for several seconds. The man tries to inject John with the syringe, and John barely manages to keep it from his skin. They roll across the ground, but John manages to regain the control he temporarily lost. He ends up on top, and he ends up in a position where he can control the man's arms, and more importantly, the hand holding the syringe. He manages to pull it from the man's hand.

If John was capable of conscious thought in that moment, he would have hoped that whatever is contained in the vial will subdue the man without killing him.

He plunges the syringe into the man's neck.

It does not work instantly. For several seconds more, the man continues to struggle. After seconds, however, his movements become weaker. After a moment, he falls limp. John waits to make sure he's not moving, and then he presses two fingers beneath the man's jaw. There's a pulse. The man is alive and breathing, but he is no longer a threat.

It is only at this moment that John realises that it was an even fight. Yes, John had been aware from the start that the man was about as strong as John himself – they were evenly matched in that sense – but this is not what takes John by surprise. What surprises him is the fact that it _should not_ have been an even fight. There had been two men, working together. It should have been two against one.

John turns around.

The man in question – the one who John would have expected to get involved in the fight at the first available opportunity – is gone.

What is even more surprising is the fact that the last man – Sherlock Holmes, they had called him; the man from the middle, the man who moments ago had been in a barely-conscious state, crumpled on the ground – is on his feet. He is standing tall and perfectly steady.

Sherlock Holmes, noting John's confusion that stems from the fact that there is one less person to fight off, says, "He ran as soon as the fight started. I presume he made the reasonable decision that his job was not worth getting himself killed over."

"I wasn't going to kill him," John says.

In response, Sherlock looks pointedly over John's shoulder at the man who now lies unconscious.

John says, "He's not dead."

Sherlock says no words in response.

After a moment, John takes a step closer. "Are you hurt?" he asks, eyes roaming over the man's pale skin for any signs of injuries.

The man shakes his head. "Hardly," he says.

John says, "A moment ago you were barely conscious," he says. "Now you're... standing. How did that happen, exactly?"

"They underestimated the amount that they would need to use for a drug to have an effect on me," Sherlock explains. "Which is an example of their own stupidity, really. Their conversation when we arrived here proves they knew I was an ex-addict."

John frowns. "So... you were faking it," he says. He doesn't quite phrase it as a question.

Sherlock makes a dismissive gesture. "I've enough experience in the area to be familiar with the sensations. It's easy enough to replicate the symptoms of an overdose."

"Why?" John asks. "They were going to kill you, and you were just lying there. You didn't even try to fight them off."

"I wasn't going to let them kill me," Sherlock says.

"You very well nearly did. You were going to have a bullet through your head if I hadn't stepped in when I did."

"And it's precisely the fact that you were there that I didn't bother to fight them off. I knew you were there."

John blinks. "Excuse me?"

"I heard you," Sherlock explains. "I knew that you were following us. It was hardly a huge leap to think that you were prepared to step in if it looked like my life was in danger. I knew we had a much better chance of survival if I were to wait for you to join my side."

"That was a massive risk, you realise," John says. "What if I'd been on their side? Or what if I'd not been strong enough to take them on? We could have both died."

"And yet," Sherlock says, "here we both are."

John frowns. He wonders to himself if the man before him has some sort of death wish, though he doesn't ask this out loud. Instead, after a pause, he asks, "Okay, so why bother faking the symptoms of being drugged in the first place?" he asks. "You wouldn't have known that anyone else was out here to help you. Why didn't you try to fight them off before you reached a place as isolated as this?"

Sherlock clears his throat. "Yes, well, that was a poor decision on my part," he says, looking away briefly. "I had not anticipated being taken to such a... mundane location. I expected more from Moriarty."

"Moriarty?" John repeats. He looks towards the fallen man on the ground. "Is that his name?"

Sherlock scoffs out a laugh. "No, certainly not," he says. "Moriarty is the most dangerous criminal mastermind I have ever encountered – and I assure you, I've encountered a few of them. In recent months, suffice to say he's developed a sort of... obsession with me. I've been playing his game for months now, trying to track him down. I thought for sure he would want to meet face to face at least once before he inevitably tried to kill me. I expected his goons to take me to him." He looks around the trees, around the woods. "I'm a little bit disappointed, actually."

"You're disappointed you weren't taken to, quote, 'the most dangerous criminal mastermind' to be killed," John says.

"Yes," Sherlock says seriously in response.

John stares at him for a moment, and then shakes his head, letting out a breath. "Maybe you do have a death wish," he mutters, and then he looks towards the fallen man on the ground. There's no way of knowing how long he will remain unconscious for. John assumes the syringe contained a sedative, but he has no way of knowing how strong it is.

A part of John feels guilty for leaving the man behind. He then reminds himself that the man found his own way here, and so, once he wakes up, he will be able to find his own way back.

John turns back to Sherlock. "We should get out of here," he says.

Sherlock nods his head and collects the fallen torch from the ground, where it had been dropped in the fight. "Then let's go," he says.


End file.
